Teaching Experience

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Since 2014, Brett has taught a 2-Hour course, Recognising Contaminants in Soil for Construction Workers and Managers. This course was required under a Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT) consent for infrastructure-repair earthworks. Staff from Fletcher, Fulton-Hogan, City Care, McConnell Dowell and Downer attended these sessions. Sephira Environmental has ongoing requests for training from earthworks contractors in Christchurch wishing to fulfil requirements under WorkSafe when excavating in potentially contaminated soil.

Brett and Helen taught at the University of Canterbury, Chemical and Process Engineering Department, as Visiting Industrial Professionals, for three years (2012, 2013 and 2015) - supporting the undergraduate course, Industrial Pollution Control coordinated by Dr. Gabriel Visnovsky.

After 30 years in the environmental consulting business, Brett and Helen have extensive experience teaching junior staff about the technical aspects investigation, risk assessment and remediation.  

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Testimonials

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The general feedback we get from contractors who have attended the 'recognising contaminants' course is that Brett is clear, helpful and informative. Our best measure for success are calls for more training!

The following are some of the comments the students wrote in an anonymous survey about Helen and Brett's teaching styles form the September 2012 VIP Funding Scheme Report by Dr. Gabriel Visnovsky:
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"Brett is very enthusiastic and great lecturer, and explained things really well."

"Helen's life-experience examples brought to the course were excellent."

"I enjoyed both Brett's and Helen's lectures. At the beginning of every class they took a few minutes to remind [about] things explained in the lecture before, which is much easier to engage on the subject they were about to teach."

"Good explanations on cause studies. Not too complicated ... Lecture notes helped. Interactive sessions made it easy for me to understand things."
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BAck to Education