Lesson Study (LS) has been considered to be a novel approach to preparing and teaching lessons in the education system of Vietnam and applied to all schools nationwide. However, it has not been included in the educational teacher training curricula at the undergraduate level. Consequently, pre-service teachers may not only get a keen sense of what LS is but also face lots of trouble preparing an appropriate lesson plan (LP) which reflects the LS approach. Hence, this study aims at enhancing the pre-service biology teachers' (PBTs) understanding of the LS and developing the biology lesson plan (LP) by using the LS process. The research paradigm used in this phase is a mainly qualitative case study and a descriptive statistics design. Six female PBTs in their third year were chosen randomly from the volunteers to participate in the research. Before participating in the LS training workshop, the percentage of six PBT's understanding of the LS was at 0.0%. However, after participating in the LS training workshops (LSTW), the six PBTs had a better insight into the LS and how to use the LS process to construct better biology LPs, which was proven by the average of 85.7%. After participating in the LSTW, the entire PBTs recognized that LPs were team products and building better biology LPs was not so easy as it seemed. The LP was constructed based on the team collaboration in which all members shared their experiences.

The article analyses the significance of a reality-experienced program taking place in Thailand for Vietnamese student teachers. The reality-experienced program enables students to explore the cultural features and education systems of the two countries, where the students' pedagogical competency enhancement and personal ability improvement are the objectives of this research. The research is carried out based on the naturalistic paradigm and application of the qualitative method on six students of natural sciences discipline in the School of Education of Can Tho University. There were many activities that the internship program provided for the participants, such as visiting famous historical monuments and demonstrations of the school; meetings to exchange cultures between two countries; working together to design lesson plans and conduct microteaching; discovering Thai culture; especially implementing practicum in the lower and upper secondary schools. Therefore, the data collected include photos, personal journals, and reports of those students. The data of the research are analyzed by using the constant comparative method. The results show that all of these students have learned valuable lessons from those cultural features and education systems when using English to communicate, working in groups, developing pedagogical competency and improving personal abilities. Moreover, the experience learned from overcoming the challenges should be the ground for a better program in the future.

This paper outlines the prerequisites and process of establishing of a community-based energy centre for sustainable agriculture practices in a rural village in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. The centre was constructed by community consensus building and consisted of two main components including a community house and a community-biogas production system. The community house acts as a place where local people organize community activities such as traditional festivals and the production local products for local markets as well as community tourism. The community-biogas production system consists of a 41,6 m3 large biogas digester. The digester utilizes collected bio-degraded organic wastes from the local households and waste from animal husbandry as well as additional available green biomass such as water hyacinth. Methane produced will be used for cooking activities at the centre and delivered to the households in the community. Local people have contributed their own labours to build and manage the community-energy centre. Capacity building for the community is supported by experts of universities in both Vietnam and Japan. The community further intents to self-organize themselves to earn benefits through sustainable agricultural production such as planting organic vegetable and fruit trees, animal and fish raising, etc. This model is the first step in promoting the village as the “the most beautiful village” to clean up and promote environmental and sustainable technologies in the village. Furthermore, it is also a good option for inclusion in upgrading criteria for new rural development issued by Vietnamese government.

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The study aimed to compare methane emissions and related physicochemical soil and water parameters between the Peat swamp forest and Melaleuca forest. The results show that both water and soil parameters at 8 examined sites in Melaleuca forest and Peat swamp forest fluctuated highly over the sampling intervals. The average hourly C-CH 4 emission rates in Melaleuca forest (26.58 mg/m 2 /h) was higher than that in Peat swamp forest (21.18 mg/m 2 /h). Generally, water level and redox potential were important factors regulating emissions of methane gases. The Eh values were all negative values, ranged between −196.5 ± 22.75 mV and −27.75 ± 15.37 mV, indicative of high electron activity and intense anaerobic. Peat swamp forest's soil had relatively higher organic matter, CEC, TN and TP values than Melaleuca forest's soil. The COD values fluctuated between 197.3 ± 51.78 mg/L and 396.8 ± 25.77 mg/L, indicative of organic pollution of surface water. It is suggested shorter time measurement (at least twice a day) of methane emission for more accurate evaluation.