This project, on increasing awareness of envirnoment conservation, aims to boost the knowledge and awareness of Singaporean students on environment conservation and coastal biodiversity. This is important as we continue unknowingly to do harm to the environment.

Contributors

• Terh Yee Jiunn
• Woon Wei Seng
• Liu Jianghao
• Chua Boon Haow
• Low Guan Jie

Reflections for CPS -- Thursday, August 10, 2006

From this CPS report, i learnt more about myself that i am weak in consolidation of ideas and lack creativity. This is seen through lack of understanding what point the teacher is trying to put through. However i also learnt that i am good in brainstorming ideas as seen from the part where we were trying to get ideas to get 16 problems and solutions for our CPS report. Through this CPS report, i also learnt to be more mature and be responsible. This is due to the tight schedule for handing in of the CPS progress report. Thus all of us have to be quick in finishing any jobs which are assigned to us. All this will cause me to be more mature in deciding which things are more important and should be dealt with quickly and which can done later. Other then that, i also learnt that packaging is very important and thus we would try to improve on making things which are done packaged nicely such that it would seem like one big project.

Other then myself, i also learnt that more about my friends when we were compiling out CPS report. Weiseng our team leader is good at packaging our activities into a lesson package. Thus from here i could try to learn more from him.

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whispered 10:11 PM

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CmPS Report Discussion -- Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Mirror (Self-reflect)
Who am I? What are my values?
I am a student who wish to increase environmental awareness in Singapore students

What have I learnt about myself through the experience?
I have found that I have the passion in spreading the awareness in conserving our environment to other students.

How have I matured in areas of empathy and responsibility?
From the activity, I know that there are many areas for improvement in the "Clean and Green" Singapore

Has my sense of community altered?
Yes. I have developed a liking in helping others as well as helping the environment

Did I overcome personal barriers / fears?
Yes, I learnt to gather the attention of a group of students.

What would I do differently given the chance again?
I would make the objectives much clearer to them, and also based on my experiences help them to develop a passion in conserving our environment

How will my experience change the way I act or think in the future?
I will think twice whenever I make an action.


Microscope (Make small exp. large)
What have I learnt about people who received my help?
They are actually quite willing to help save the environment contrary to what many think that Singaporeans are apathetic

Describe a noteworthy moment in the activity. How do you feel?
We brainstormed the ideas which initially might sound crazy but on second thoughts, it can also be quite practical

What more can be done for the people / environment?
We have to slowly expand our target audience as well as covering the different fields of the environment

-Yee Jiunn

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whispered 10:05 PM

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AAR for NYPS Environmental Week -- Thursday, July 20, 2006

PLUS
Everything planned well beforehand

Wide range of activities

Engage a large group of people

Students had a lot of fun from the activities

Good communication with the school’s teacher in charge

Students learnt a lot on the conservation from the workshop

Managed to find prizes and low price

Good collaboration with NYPS


MINUS

"Beach" cleanup not well planned

Poor class control

Presentation not toned down

Trainers not well-prepared

SUGGESTIONS

Must Reece the place

Consult the teachers on the presentation

Attend training sessions on leadership skills

Learn to work with Primary School students

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whispered 12:10 PM

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From then till now... -- Monday, July 10, 2006

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whispered 11:01 PM

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From this SL project, I have learnt quite a bit about myself, about my capabilities, and I realize that my organisational skills have improved over time.

When I first started out working on Changi Beach, the logistics was too messy, and being the OS, I was always confused about what to do, how to manage the team. It being my first time managing something so big, I was at a loss often, and the teachers had to do a bit more hand-holding sometimes before we could get things done. Things were also quite last-minute, though it was unintentional.

There was once I almost cried over the organization of Changi Beach. It made me learn that different people think differently, and thus comments towards your work differs, when comment is given by a Humanities teacher and by a Science teacher. The teacher happened not to be very encouraging about things, and I felt exasperated that I did so much, but the teacher did not praise much and was very sarcastic about it all. Sadly it soured relations between us, but I really learnt what it felt like to be criticized this bad, and it made me more mindful about giving constructive comments.

Thankfully, things turned out better on the day of the event, without too major hiccups. Though unforeseen circumstances emerged, we managed to deal with them ad-hoc, and Changi Beach fieldtrip went by without any emergency or bad events.

Learning from Changi Beach and the AAR conducted, we learnt not to commit the same fallacies again, and set out to do better.

The next activity was the Biodiversity Sabbatical. Organization was done earlier, and as I was not involved with this activity due to my schedule, I am not in the position to comment too much, but I heard feedback was quite positive, which is a booster to us and their confidence, to do better.

Following which, the activity next was Kindness Week. We were informed quite late about this, and thus we went into a rush trying to prepare everything in time. Thankfully, little last-minute work was done due to good planning in advance, and the demands of the event was not as heavy. I learnt that with planning, there is no need to do last-minute work, which sometimes I have a tendency to do.

I also realized, that in people's pursuit to be kind to others, to be kind to animals, even in Courtesy or Kindness Campaigns, we have always left out someone to be kind to: Mother Earth. That was the purpose behind Kindness Week's theme of Kindness to the Environment. Without our environment, we would not be able to thrive, to be able to do anything at all.

NYPS Environment Week was really a culmination of all our experimentation and hard work. It was a daunting task to prepare 5 - 6 different types of activities to be organized at NYPS in one week. Especially since the activities varied in type, it was even harder to plan. But our proposal was accepted, and things just flowed as we worked along, without encountering major issues. From there, I really learnt my abilities, how far I was able to stretch myself. I didnt know I could possibly organize a larger-scale event like Environment Week.

But I think more can be done. Hopefully we can bring this Environment Week concept and spread to other primary schools, and even help them organize such activities. It will become like an educational event package for primary schools, which might be one-off events, but with continuation every year, will foster students' concepts of environment conservation, and constantly remind them of the need to save Mother Earth before it's too late.

We must start now, we are already having a taste of what it might be like in the future, with scorching hot weather and burning days hot nights.

Wei Seng

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whispered 10:21 PM

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NYPS Environmental Week Reflections -- Sunday, July 09, 2006

To spread the message of environmental conservation and awareness to care for the environment, we organized a series of activities in conjunction with the Nanyang Primary School’s environmental week. These activities included a quiz cum exhibition, slogan competition, drawing competition, a workshop and a beach cleanup. These activities were targeted at different levels so that every student could participate in them.

I would say the exhibition went well as we were well prepared with the posters to be put up. These posters were done by Ortus Secondary 3s who had went for the Changi Beach Cleanup in February. During the Youth Day holiday, we went to the school to put up these posters. In addition to the exhibition, I was also put in charge of designing a quiz for the students visiting the exhibition. One of the main challenges I faced was that the original open-ended style of the quiz was rejected by the school and I had to come up with a MCQ style quiz to facilitate easier marking for the teachers.

We also faced many challenges during the preparation of the workshop as we had to lower the standard of the original PowerPoints designed. We had to incorporate games into the workshop to sustain the students’ interests. Then we were informed a week before the workshop that students from Brunei on an exchange programme would be joining in for the workshop as well. Initially we thought it would merely mean more people participating in the workshop. However on the actual day, we realized that these students could not understand English and so had difficulty understanding what was being taught. This contributed to the rowdiness and luckily there the students from Nanyang Primary School translated our words into Malay for them.

Nevertheless, the games were equally chaotic since the students from Brunei could not understand game instructions leading to confusions. We only managed to reduce the rowdiness by giving out sweets to encourage the students to participate in discussions. I feel that the workshop could have been better planned, as the instructions for the games were unclear even to the Nanyang Primary School students. The PowerPoint presentations were also too short and there was minimal interaction between the presenters and students. On the overall, the workshop was successful in raising awareness of environmental conservation among students and many gave feedback that they had learnt much from the workshop.

Good communication was crucial in the success of these activities as it ensured everyone is updated regularly on upcoming events and meetings. Members were able to better exchange information and it was easier to compile work plans for each event. Communication was important in liaising with Nanyang Primary School and informing them of updates and allowing fast and efficient exchange of information on both sides.

Efficient was another factor contributing to the success of this event as everyone worked on a tight schedule to complete their tasks. As each member of the group was assigned a particular event, it was easier for us to focus on our tasks and share the workload evenly. In conclusion, the Nanyang Primary School environmental week was a success and every single event was well executed.

Jianghao

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whispered 9:35 PM

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It was of great enthusiasm, fun, interest and passion that we embarked on the collaboration with NYPS for an Environmental Week over at their school. This event, as compared to previous events, were much larger scale, featuring a week of events including an exhibition on coastal conservation (targeted at the upper primary mainly) and a quiz set by our own members, environmental awareness competitions – drawing (for lower primary 1 – 3) and bookmark-cum-slogan design (for upper primary 4), a workshop on Biodiversity and Conservation - integrating games and presentation (for upper primary 5) and also a beach-clean up at West Coast Park. NYPS is having her own environmental competition, likewise for us, thus presenting a win-win situation.

We collaborated with the NYPS teacher i/c Mrs Loo Peck Fong and the school's Operations Manager, Mr William Woo, and discussed with them on the proposals and the operations of the event to ensure smooth delivery of the whole event.

The exhibition is for the whole school and the theme is conservation awareness. Posters for the exhibition include those done up by our very own Secondary 3 Ortus pupils when they cleaned up Changi Beach and from NEA. This is to promote coastal beach conservation among the pupils and highlight the rich biodiversity of our coastal environment as something for conservation. The quiz that comes with it (for upper primary) involves only multiple choices questions (so to suit the primary level). The public (surrounding neighbourhood) were also involved as we invitation leaflets were distributed to ask them to come for the exhibition. A newspaper recycling corner was also set up for the public to bring in old newspaper to recycle. We brought the posters over and set them up at their canteen during Youth Day. The setting up of the posters enable us to learn to fully utilize the space given to us. I also did up the leaflet, enabling me to hone my photoshop designing skills.

Both competitions is to allow students to use creative methods to express their thoughts on saving the environment except that the drawing competition is targeted at lower primary pupils and the slogan competition is targeted at the Primary 4 pupils accordance to their capabilities. The slogan competition is also tied in to the school’s own assignment project for the Primary 4 pupils. It was really encouraging to see the number of submissions for the competitions, noting that there are also many other environmental activists like us, out there.

The workshop on environmental conservation and biodiversity aims to increase environmental awareness and allow students to find out what they can do to help play a role in saving the environment. It targets the upper primary 5 pupils involving a class of about 20 – 30 pupils with other students from Burma. It involves fun games to easily attract primary school pupils’ attention such as Janga and "Hungry Fishermen" and tying them in with environmental conservation and interactive presentation so not to bore the pupils. As we have already conducted similar events during the sabbatical, it was still average in terms of conducting the course. However, it was harder to control the pupils as the Burma students were unable to understand English well enough for some of the terms, and some of the students were quite rowdy, therefore we was not be able to maximise the full time given to us to conduct the course properly. Nevertheless, some of the students were very co-operative. Therefore, through this, I learnt more about controlling of young primary school students. Firstly, the space we were at, might be probably too huge to accomodate them, therefore people were scattered and it will be hard for us to control. Thus, a classroom would have been better. Next, we should enforce stricter discipline throughout the whole lesson. We also learnt about better preparation as we had not rehearsed a lot before the real event, leading to the rowdiness.

Last but not least, the beach clean-up will be held next week which hopes to increase students’ awareness towards keeping beaches clean and to experience what it feels like to pick litter, and the importance of not littering and keeping the environment clean.

Although this time it was of a much larger scale, after learning from our previous organisations, it was much easier this time as we just implement what we learnt last time here. Moreover, the events were somewhat the same, just that the key factor here is to tone down the language used to suit the primary school students.

Through the planning of the various events, we learnt what constitutes organization, planning, inclement programmes, reviewing, logistics, objectives, and in turn fine-tune our planning to the best. We also learnt how to lower the understanding level for the primary school pupils by putting ourselves in their shoes.

Boon Haow

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whispered 9:21 PM

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It feels good to be able to contribute to your alma mater. As part of Service Learning Project to increase the awareness of environment conservation, our group decided to approach nanyang primary school to promote environmental awareness on top of our own school. Coincidentally, the school is also embarking on an environmental competition that requires the involvement of the whole school.

So we came up with the idea of having an environmental week in the school that can involve the different levels. Under the mentorship of the teacher i/c Mrs Loo Peck Fong and the school's Operations Manager, Mr William Woo, we planned a series of events for the school.

Firstly, we have a schoolwide exhibition on coastal conservation. It is held at the school canteen where pupils are free to view during their recess. There is also a quiz regarding the exhibition where all students can participate in. As part of the outreach programme, the school has also invited residents living nearby to view the posters and bring in used newspaper for recycling.


Next, we have a slogan cum bookmark competition for the upper primary students. Students are required to design a bookmark containing a slogan that can promote environmental awareness. Simultaneously, there is the lower primary's drawing competition where the theme was on Saving our Environment.


Then, for the Primary 5 students, we organised a workshop on Biodiversity and Conservation. It is a 2-hour workshop held for the school's environmental monitors. There were also 20 students from brunei that were in NYPS for immersion programme that sat in our workshop. During the workshop, on top of lectures, we had interesting and interactive game for the students. I can see that the students enjoyed it a lot. The students rated us 4/5 overall.


Lastly, for the school's brownies who had to do some Community Involvement Programme activities, we held a beach cleanup at West Coast Park. On top of the usual picking of litters, we included some handouts on classifying the litter and pose reflective questions like "why are the rubbish there?", "why can't we throw litters in the beach?" etc.

Overall, I feel that this has been an enriching experience as it is the first time I organised an event for such a big target audience. I would say we wouldn't have done it without the guidance of the two personnel from NYPS, Mrs Loo and Mr Woo.

Yee Jiunn

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whispered 5:40 PM

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Discovery of myself through the SL project -- Saturday, July 08, 2006

Through this SL project I feel that i had learnt more about myself. I learnt that we should be more proactive in comunication with one another. This is what I had not done in the past where I would be more passive and wait for things to happen before responding. Being more proactive helps me to learn of the problems within each project we undertake and thus we are able to solve problems when one is spotted much more quickly thus improving our efficiency when planning activities. This couls be seen from the differences from the Changi Beach activity as compared to the one week activity prepared for Nanyang Primary School.

After organizing many different activity for environmental conservation my knowledge on environmental conservation increased. This also brought about more knowledge of the suffering of the animals living in the sea and animals living in land with either a polluted habitat or a lose of habitat. This made me feel sad for them as I put myself in their shoes and imagine the problems which could be faced by these animals. This was not present in me in the beginning of the project. I was passionate about the conservation of the environment more for our own future generations instead of empathizing the animals which live in these habitats which are polluted or cleared out by humans for their own gains. With this increased empathy for the organisms living in these habitats we are trying to conserve, I felt a stronger sense of responsibility to make each activity a success so that the maximum number of people would become more aware of the plight of the organisms living in the areas which are poluted or destroyed.

Other then learning more about myself, I also learnt more about the people around me. Like my teammates we were more close up at the beginning of the project and would not voice out some of the ideas we had when discussing with our mentors or brainstorming for ideas for the different activity organized. However towards the end of the project espcially during the Nanyang Primary School environment awareness week activity, we are more open and could communicate pretty well with the teachers and voice out our opinions leading to many ideas generated and more activities were organized to cater for the different levels of students in Nanyang Primary School.

The project was enjoyable with the teammates as we were able to communicate well with each other and able to work well with one another. However, this project was made more memorable by the students response which was very positive. One example would be the students response in the biodiversity sabbatical where the students reflect very positively and learned alot about the importance of conservation of biodiversity. Such positive response pushed us on and inspired us to do better for the next acitivity conducted. However, we also hope that the students would also become passionate about environmental conservation and thus push for being more environmentally friendly within their social circles and thus helping the environment.

One of the underlying problem behind the pollution of environment is that Singaporeans are generally environmentally apathetic. They do not know of the grave consequences of the small things which they do daily but would affected the environment negatively. This problem could be solved by pushing for more environmental awareness between singaporeans. This would then lead to Singaporeans being more environmentally aware of the things which they can do to conserve the environment. If these campaigns, lectures, camps. seminars, workshops, exhibitions are successful, Singaporeans being stakeholders of the environ ment would want to conserve it for the future generation and to boost economy in the long run, this would then lead to a better environment on the whole which would be in accordance to what our project is hoping would be able to achieve at least on a small scale.

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whispered 10:36 PM

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Planning

Having picked up experience from organizing the Changi Beach fieldtrip & Kindness Week activities, planning for Environment Week for NYPS appeared to be a breeze.

We met up with Mrs Loo Peck Fong & Mr William Woo of NYPS about every fortnight. When we first met, we thrashed out the basic details of the Environment Week and what NYPS wants. With their demands in mind, we sat down together and planned for all our activities at NYPS.

We came out with the following activities to be introduced during Environment Week on Term 3 Week 2:

1. Exhibition on coastal environment conservation, done by participants of the Changi Beach fieldtrip
2. Drawing competition for Primary 1 - 3 students, with the theme of saving the environment
3. Slogan & Bookmark design competition for Primary 4 students
4. Workshop on environmental conservation & biodiversity for Primary 5 students
5. Beach cleaning at West Coast Beach for Brownies

Activities that were proposed targetted different levels, and each level had activities on Environment Week. When our proposal to NYPS was accepted, we started drafting a workplan for Environment Week, from the managing of budget for prizes to preparing rubrics and criteria for judging of art and bookmark pieces. Meanwhile, I prepared handouts for the activity I was in charge of: West Coast Beach Cleanup. Similar handouts to that of Changi Beach were prepared, with another beach litter checklist.

At every meeting, we discussed more and more details about NYPS Environment Week. Changes to the Work Plan were made, and it was decided that an Outreach Programme would be included. This meant residents around NYPS (Coronation Road, King's Road) were allowed to visit NYPS to take a look at the exhibits on display and deposit newspapers for recycling.

Execution

As the Environment Week drew nearer, we started procuring prizes for all the different competitions we were organizing. Teachers were asked to brief their students about Environment Week and the upcoming activities they could take part in. We got all handouts and relevant materials printed prior to Environment Week.

On Youth Day, the day before Environment Week commences, we went down to NYPS for the last time before the activities begin. We set up the exhibits for the exhibition in the school canteen with the help of Mr Woo and the school cleaners.

NYPS Environment Week lasted from Tuesday 4 July to Friday 7 July, and students could view exhibits put up in the canteen and participate in a quiz about the exhibition that allowed them to win attractive prizes.

Meanwhile, winners of the Art & Slogan competition have been selected, with prizes to be awarded to them on the Monday after Environment Week.

On Wednesday 5 July, the Workshop on Environment Conservation & Biodiversity took place in the school and the other four members of the group conducted the workshop for 20 Environment Monitors & Environment Champions. We were also honoured to have with us 20 visitors from Brunei to sit in during our workshop and join our students in the fun-filled workshop that not just involved lessons but also games.

The last activity of Environment Week is to take place on this coming Friday 14/7, the West Coast Beach Cleanup.

Reflections

I felt a sense of achievement for having organized the inaugral Environment Week for NYPS. Our organization skills improved, with no major technical or logistical problems during the planning and execution of Environment Week, and we are working better and better as a team. There were no heated arguments, and everyone did their part and helped out with everyone elses' work, encouraging each other along the way. The group dynamics was there. We had to cater to the needs of the school, so our activities had to be relevant and moulded for the school's use.

This project actually presented a Win-Win situation. With the inaugral Environment Week, NYPS is poised to win an award on Environmental Conservation that it has been aiming for. This award evaluates schools on their environment-friendliness and initiatives rolled out to boost environment awareness in the school. Organizing the Environment Week allows them to satisfy the last criteria they have failed to meet on the award, and thus they will qualify for this award.

For us, it was a good experience in honing our organization skills, especially since this caters to an even larger audience: the whole school, including multiple activities for different levels, unlike in organizing Kindenss Week, which was less demanding due to the limited activities planned.

Considering it being our first attempt in organizing something for another school, I think overall we have been successful in organizing this event, and our method of exhibitions, talks and competitions to boost awareness of environment conservation is working so far.

But I think some areas of improvement can be identified:

1. Communication between organizers and NYPS teachers-in-charge was not as good at times as often we were uncontactable to them and vice-versa
2. Meetings tended to be long as forgotten issues were thrashed out only on the spot or organizers and teachers will engage in seperate discussions on their own, causing disengagement sometimes.

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whispered 3:54 PM

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Environment Week Reflection -- Friday, July 07, 2006

On the third of July to the seventh of July, we organized activites for Nanyang primary school. This week was coined as Environmental awareness week and throughout this week we organized an exhibition, a slogan compeitition, a drawing compeitition and a workshop for students in Nanyang primary school.

Through this event I learned how to communicate better with teachers and fit into the needs of the school. We have to follow some of the guidelines of the school and timing of the school as they themselves have to accomplish certain task set out by the NEA. This makes it harder for us due to time constrains as they have to finish the whole project by a certain time. Furthermore, the school teachers are very busy, thus we it was hard to find a time where all of us can meet together.

Personally, I also learned the importance of getting everything ready early. This would help to give ample time to react to any sudden change of plans. This is especially so for the workshop conducted for the primary school students. Initially we did not get the janga set beforehand, thus we had to quickly borrow at the day before. This made us unable to focus on rehearsing the day before making us nervous during the day of presentation. Luckily the presentation went pretty well and the students were very cooperative.

For the group this was the first time we are organizing an activity for another school. All other activities done were focused in the school. This created some problems as we were not really familiar with the school and what the students level of awareness in environmental conservation are. However with the help of the teachers-in-charge of these activities, we were able to cater the the students need. Other than that the teachers also helped by organizing our time when the most number of students can join our activities. These made our activity known to more of the students and thus was able to reach out to more and hopefully more of the students in Nanyang primary school would be more environmentally friendly and more passionate in environmental conservation.

Overall the activites organized for the students were quite successful. The slogan compeitition aimed at the lower primary students receive many slogans which were well designed. The art compeitition was also well received by the lower primary students with many good entries. The workshop was also quite successful as the feedback from the students were positive and that they had learned alot about the importance of conservation.

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whispered 3:52 PM

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Interview by Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) -- Sunday, June 25, 2006

Through a contact from Mrs Kee Ee Kian asking for service learning groups doing a project about the environment to be interviewed by MEWR, Mr Goh, our project mentor, managed help us secure the interview by journalists from MEWR who were working on an article on environmental initiatives by youths. On the 6^th of June, Mr Goh, Yee Jiunn, Guan Jie and me (Jianghao) met up with Ms Somaiah from MEWR in our school for the interview.

During the lighthearted interview, we had a friendly chat with Ms Somaiah about our project and how we came up with our environmental initiatives. Being interviewed the first time, we were tongue tied for quite some time before we began speaking up. Besides sharing our service-learning project, we were also asked about our hobbies and our science projects. The interview was a great moral booster as we felt acknowledged for our efforts and we were motivated to come up with more initiatives in the future.

Below is the article by MEWR:

Rooting for Action and Shooting for the Stars!

Youth Habitat had the pleasure of speaking to three hard-core environmentally active Hwa Chong Institution Secondary 4 students, Terh Yee Jiunn, Low Guan Jie and Liu Jianghao. The trio, encouraged by biology teacher Mr Goh Yan Yih, is leading a Roots and Shoots initiative which will spread green ideas to Nanyang Primary school students during the inaugural Nanyang Primary School Environment Week! Roots and Shoots in HCI started in 2006.

All of them have had good experiences co-organizing sabbatical events in school and in attending a course at the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research last year. Guan Jie feels that he learnt much about biodiversity and preservation of our natural environments,

“We need to know more about the biodiversity in this area. If we conserve, it’s important to know what’s inside. If we want to know which area to conserve – we do need to develop – but we have to better know which areas are more special with rare species and plants.”

The Roots and Shoots Nanyang Primary School project will share the importance of biodiversity and conservation. It will teach the young participants about the five kingdoms, the 3Rs (recycle, reduce, reuse) and most significantly how students can help share environmental responsibilities. Guan Jie believes the key in getting youth more passionate and active in environmental work lies in “building awareness.”

The first project the five of them organized was a fieldtrip to Changi Beach for four classes of Secondary 3 students. On top of picking up litter along the coastline, the participants also got to learn some coastal Biology and Geography through fun-filled activities. They got the chance to identify the biodiversity found in the shallow waters and do some hands-on Geography fieldwork on the beach.

The trio, apart from being busy with the Roots and Shoots with their other fellow team mates Chua Boon Haow and leader Woon Wei Seng, are also active with other projects engaging with environmental sustainability.

Jianghao and Guan Jie are involved in a chemistry related project organized by Nanyang Technological University. They are learning how to turn waste toxic heavy metals into recycled coloured glass! An endeavor too dangerous for a pair of sixteen year olds? Guan Jie is quick to dismiss the claim, “Actually it is not dangerous. Just add them with sand and sodium carbonate and heat them up.” These guys clearly know their chemical compositions! Says Jianghao who likes cycling at night,

“Many young people don’t seem to care about the environment – if they don’t start it might be too late.

Musically talented Yee Jiunn is working on another project that deals with testing for an ideal eco-friendly fuel that can replace current diesel being used. Mixtures made of waste vegetable oil can produce a biodiesal which can run on any diesel engine. Yee Jiunn’s project involves separating which kind of oil: palm, soya, canola etc. works best. This is an ‘in-house’ project but with an external mentor from Ngee Ann Polytechnic. He shared,

“Everyone needs to play a part. Individual efforts are not enough to save the environment. Start small and participate.”

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whispered 8:20 PM

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Kindness Week AAR -- Monday, May 08, 2006

Date: 8/5/2006 Time: 3.30 - 5.00 pm Venue: 4i Classroom
All present including Mr Goh YY

Observable facts:

Administration
Did not liaise early enough with Library
No feedback system

Programmes
Too little programmes: Talk, Exhibition & Quiz

Logistics
Exhibition put up last minute
Keeping of exhibits not well done
Good collaboration with Library
Prizes prepared late due to neglect

Planning
Talk and quiz announced too late
Exhibits & layout well done

Actual Week
Reception of speaker for talk poor
Poor response for programmes
Talk was success, Q & A session well-received
No one collected their prizes from us

Assumptions/Causes:

Administration
Assumed library received proposals and plans for Kindness Week
Assumed ACE for participation in quiz and slogan competition will be given

Programmes
Publicity not good enough

Logistics
Time management issues
Assumed we had enough time to put up exhibits

Planning
Did not prepare quiz early enough for early publicity
Did not inform students about talk early enough

Actual Week
Assumed speaker will know location / venue of talk
Did not see / vet PowerPoint beforehand
Late announcement of winners

Collective Proposals / Area for improvement:

Administration
Contact Library earlier
Be more proactive in making sure Library receives documents

Programmes
Arrange more interactive programmes like gameshow

Logistics
Prepare prizes earlier and announce earlier
Higher budget for prizes
Ask for PowerPoint to be presented from speaker

Planning
Prepare quiz earlier
More publicity for programmes

Actual Day
Provide feedback corner
Provide reception for speaker after talk
Entertain speaker better

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whispered 10:26 PM

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Kindness week started off with a talk by an invited speaker from SembEnviro. Though I expected many to turn up for the talk, the response was poor as only 50 students came for the talk. I feel that one of the main reasons that few turned up was that the talk was held quite late at around 3:30pm. Another reason was that students were only informed of the details of the talk the previous Friday hence few would have wanted to turn up. I think that if the details had been worked out earlier the talk could have been publicized over a duration of a few days so that the response could be better. It was also the first time I was hosting an eternal speaker and so I was a bit shy when interacting with him and bringing him around the school before the talk began. This taught me that effective communication was important in interacting with people.

As kindness week also included an exhibition of posters done by Secondary 3 students who had went to Changi Beach, I was also involved in the designing of the layout of posters and putting them up. I personally feel that a lot of effort had been put into the layout design and the group was very satisfied with the poster exhibition. I was also put in charge of the designing of quiz questions for the exhibition. Due to lack of time, I had to come up with the questions in 2 days time. Though the initial draft was not well accepted, I had to quickly make changes to the quiz layout, inserting pictures as well as questions that required more thinking. It really taught me to manage my time well to come up with the questions, planning the exhibitions and managing my hectic school schedule.

On the overall, I feel that the week had been a really meaningful week for both the students and us. It benefited everyone in raising the awareness of environmental conservation. Besides learning important skills in time management and communication, I also got to better understand my group members and my project. I’m definitely in favour of the school organizing such weeks in the near future.

By: Liu Jianghao

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whispered 8:59 PM

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AAR for biodiversity sabbatical -- Tuesday, April 18, 2006

This AAR is for the biodiveristy sabbatical done on week 9 of term 1. So here goes a little different from Weiseng's AAR though:

Observable facts:
Trainers

• Initially poor student manegment but later on improved
• Not well trained
• Lack disicpline

Admin

• Clearance for mice/bird preservation not given until last minute

Programmes

• Lots of hands-on

Logistics

• Trainers need to rush out to buy extra stuff during sabbatical
• Confusion over venues
• Last minute changes to venuesinsufficient resources

Planning

• A lot of time spent
• Prompt in doing stuff
• Lots of efforts put in
• Resources well managed
• Slack for too long

Actual Day

• Students enjoy the activities: going to Marina South Park and rat dissection
• Students have short attention spans during lectures, theory
• Time was well managed and most activities could be finished on time
• Trainers tend to stay in a group instead of going individually to help the students
• Students are spontaneous in activities

Assumptions/Causes

Trainers

• Assumed that students are easy to manage

Admin

• Lack in initiative in trainers led to delays in certain tasks

Programmes

• The trainers had planned for lots of hands on so the students would not get bored easily

Logistics

• Logistics plan was not finalized till the last moment and hence some things might have been omitted

Planning

• Always assumed that things will go on well as planned but in actual fact did not, eg. Usage of lab by other sabbaticals told to trainers at the last minute

Actual Day

• Things on the overall went well and no accidents happened – thus sabbatical was carried out smoothly as well
• Very comprehensive and detailed action plan led to efficient carrying out of activities

Collective Proposals / Area for improvement

Trainers

• Should be more well prepared on mice preservation techniques before teaching
• Should be better trained in student managment

Admin

• Should ask Mrs Har for permission earlier

Programmes

• Clearer instructions for hands on

Logsitics

• More back up plans
• Get ready more materials then needed
• Make checklist of items needed everyday
• Improve communication with other sabbatical teachers

Planning

• Should work hard throughout instead of slack for a few weeks in the middle of planning

Actual Day

• Trainers can be attached to a particular group and stay with it for the whole duration of the sabbatical
• Better control over the students for the first 2 days so that they will be more attentive during lectures

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whispered 8:59 PM

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Details & reflections of Biodiversity & Conservation Sabbatical -- Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Being our virgin attempt in conducting our sabbatical, there were a lot of advice, guidance and help from Mr. Goh's side. The suggestion of conducting the sabbatical was actually sparked off by Mr. Goh on the topic of conservation after a few of us had actually attended a bird preservation workshop @ NUS, and wanted to expand on our work scope, and try a hand on conducting sabbaticals.

I still remember we were only a group of 3 initially, with me, Guan Jie & Yee Jiunn expressing interest over the sabbatical during the December holidays. Thus, we met up with Mr. Goh initially to discuss ideas, and our course of action during the 5-day sabbatical week to see what to include and what not to include. It was really enriching as we were allowed to plan a 5 day activity (action plan) from scratch without much help, whereby we used to only attend such activities. Although it may be tough to think of ideas, more brains definitely work better than 1, which highlighted the importance of teamwork between the members of the group. Mr. Goh gave us some books to read up on preservation, biodiversity and conservation for us to spark off ideas and to prepare for the courses of the day. We ended up with the 5 day action plan, with Biodiversity, Preservation [Of birds (which we learnt @ NUS) & insects], and conservation. The main focus of the course was actually "Biodiversity & Conservation" and we are actually 'preserving in order to conserve.'

Jobs were dedicated to work on various powerpoint and concepts, but we soon expanded to a 4 member group, with Jianghao joining first, before Jansen finally joined too.

Through the doing up of the powerpoint on Biodiversity, I certainly gained valuable knowledge on the importance of "Biodiversity" and also learnt basic presentation skills like using large font (to ensure font size are able to be seen), and also making use of the diagrams and pictures to aid in teaching and also capturing the students' attention. (Yee Jiunn - Importance of Preservation/Mice Preservation, Jianghao - Insect Preservation, Guan Jie - Conservation)

Meetings were held regularly throughout Term 1 to discuss on the whole process.

During the third official meeting, Mr. Goh vetted through our powerpoint plans before giving the final nod for the further development of our powerpoint. We gathered information from various resources such as the world wide web and the book to do up the powerpoint; in the process of which, we learnt valuable information through too.

We also made hand-made nets, by bending metal wires into loops, and sewing a fish net around it to form a net for catching insects. Mr. Goh told us about the characteristics of different nets, and what to take note while doing this nets. There were a lot of hands-on and preparatory work going on among us which we learnt a lot from which will prove useful in while conducting our course.

We also went down on recee sessions to buy stuff and also to recee areas for us to catch adequate insects for the students to preserve. It proves interesting, as although our budget was rather large, (we had to use as little money as possible) so we had to compare prices, durability and whether the materials are correct before buying the stuff. The recee sessions to Marina South & West Coast Park to find a suitable area for catching insects were also an eye-opener for us, as we realise the importance of planning, with adequate insects to catch and also due to the obstruction of "National Parks" which forbids any catching of animals within the parks.

We initially wanted to continue preserving birds, but we were unable to find dead birds by asking pet shops, especially when there is the Avian Afluenza, which made it harder for us to get the dead birds for preservation. [Prior to trying to get the birds from pet shops, we had seek Miss. Wong @ NUS who conducted the bird preservation workshop for birds, but they did not have enough (as they get their dead birds from Bird Park & Changi Airport - when birds are shoot down/crash into the aeroplanes and becomes dead], as the dead birds from these sources are also limited. Thus, we had to try seeking for ourselves. It was really hard to persuade pet shop owners to leave dead birds for you, testing our communication skills. We would also have went to try out another round for bird preservation to increase our skill of preserving animals if not for the change. Thus, there was a major crisis with the birds, thus Mr. Goh told us to settle on mice instead (as there was a classmate whose dad is a pet shop owner and is able to provide the mice), so we followed a guidebook and did hands-on. It depended a lot on our vocabulary of chinese (due to the fact that the book is in chinese) and innovation as there were certain materials that were not around in our school context. So, we had to find creative ways to preserve the animals. We also had another crisis in between though due to the law imposed by MOE to forbid any experiments done on live animals, thus the mice preservation was still pending at almost the last few weeks (8 - 9th week) which we panicked. Luckily, the pending got through or else we would have settled on plant preservation. This tested us a lot on crisis management, and to deal with real life problems on our own, testing on our problem solving skills - the ability to deal with problems.

The treasurer, Yee Jiunn was efficient and organised in keying in bank accounts and claiming money from Mr. Goh, which we can learnt after in future if we do similar jobs. Jansen was mainly the storage manager by buying most of the resources such as the box for keeping the mice, toolbox, styrofoam while Jianghao bought the bamboo poles for the nets.

After a whole term of planning, we finally conducted our sabbatical, with the Secondary Twos.

Day 1
It was rather hard to control the students as we were both unfamiliar with dealing with students and are lacking in experience in dealing with the students. After checking out on the powerpoint in the Environmental LRC's computer, I discovered that my powerpoint custom animations wasn't working, so I had to redo it. Luckily, the sabbatical only started at 9a.m. due to the module exam, so I was able to change it. If not, the powerpoint would have ended up being badly done. Thus, this highlights the importance of preparedness, as if I did check with teh LRC previously, I would not have to deal with this crisis. Being the first one to start out on the presentation, I was a little shaky as the class was a little inattentive. I learnt how to control the class by through communication throughout the rest of the day, where mutual respect is important where students attend the course because they want to learn something from us, while we conduct this course because we want to spread the knowledge of biodiversity & conservation for more to understand the severity of the problem the environnment is facing now. We adopted a points system (suggested by Jianghao & I) in order to interest the students more so that they will pay attention to the presentations, and to earn points from their groups. The Biodiversity game was a little messy as there was inadequate of answer sheets to go around and each group had a different cards to match the orders too, thus it was really confusing for other trainers to determine the 5 groups are right and wrong, leaving the job mainly to me, causing a lot of 'lag-out.' We should have better planned the activity in order to maximise the full potential of the time. However, on the same day, anther crisis occured when Mr. Goh pointed out that there were 5 missing bamboo poles, so Guan Jie and I went to the nearest retail shop @ Sixth Avenue to get the poles. We were lucky to do so, as prior knowledge of that area allows us to know that place has the things. We made it on time. This shows that we should come up with a finalised copy of items required and do a c hecklist.The net-making session took a rather long time to complete as there were a lot of students had doubt. Throughout the helping of the students to hammer and sew the nets, I was able to develop better communication skills to help, and also to give clear intrustions to them on what to do for the nets. We usually wait for all to finish before carrying on to prevent 'lagging.' After all the nets has been done, we concluded the day.

Day 2
We realised that we had forgotten to give out the consent forms for NUS Raffles Museum trip. Luckily it wasn't needed or else it would have been another crisis. At the NUS Raffles Museum, the 'tour-guide' told us about the history and the various exhibitions before we concluded our day with the mice preservation on that day. It was really interesting on how the students do hands-on to actually determine whether one is clumsy or cautious etc. We also developed communication skills and bucken up our skills in the process of helping them. We remembered to give out consent forms this time.

Day 3
After collecting the consent forms, I realised I had forgotten to get the first-aid kit. Thus, it was a more or less last minute work after telling Mr. Goh to get it. This highlights the need for a checklist for a day-by-day basis. Yee Jiunn then highlighted the importance of preservation. We went insect catching at Marina South for half of the day where each trainer was attached to a group. I was heartened especially when students from my group know the quota to catch, as they remembered to leave some of the bugs they see in the wild for them to continue to breed, and not to disrupt the population of the insects there too much. Although it was rather messy as nets break due to insecurity and them being overly rough. The insects were frozen and were soon able to be pinned afterwards. Yee Jiunn demonstrated how to pin the insects as therest of the trainers helped. This was a second go and still a rather refreshing experience for me, as I helped them in parts of the pinning for demostration. They were placed in the oven for drying.

Day 4
The insects were taken out and the boxes were decorated. Their artistic sense in them is rather rich as seen from the interesting drawings on the box. The insects were also labelled after Jianghao taught them and kept in the box. I had my virgin attempt in grading their boxes and they almost tally with what Mr. Goh mentioned, boosting my confidence in giving grades by beng not overly lenient and overly strict. After that it was the completion of mice preservation, in stuffing cotton and sticks in the mice to give them the shape and then sewing them. It was rather interesting to see how some clusmily sew the whole mice, thus help were given to correct them.

Day 5
A refreshing day whereby the students presented their powerpoint slides on the various topics they were given. It was impressive and I had fun and also invaluable experience through grading the students' powerpoint, by being encouraging, highlighting the good points (to be learnt by other groups and by myselfs) and the areas to improve in, to cover up loop holes. I learnt to be concise, and give positive feedback. It allowed me to become more positive as a person, which many people lack.The mouse boxes were decorated and placed in the boxes after. The mouse skin were comparatively thicker than the birds', so the pinning was a little tough, but overall, it was okay after innovative methods by the students and us. After that, Guan Jie talked about conservation and it really marked a nice ending to the whole sabbatical as the students pay attention and compete for the top position (healthy competition) for the group points. The practical situation of sustainable development was highlighted by the 'fisherman' game which I also learnt a lot in. The class was comparatively much more attentive to the powerpoints, which is a good sign, as we are able to conduct the class more effectively and efficiently now, quoted Mr. Goh. We indeed learnt a lot throughout the whole thing.

Throughout the whole sabbatical, we learnt various communication skills, such as giving postive feedback, being concise, co-operative and work together like putting our brains together in terms of crisis. It was really enriching as we ourselves learnt more about biodiversity & conservation after teaching the students. We believed that the class brought with them invaluable knowledge from this sabbatical and learnt a lot, both being as a person and knowledge wise. We certainly look forward to conducting such courses again.

- Boonie

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whispered 1:14 AM

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Brief AAR for Changi Beach Fieldtrip -- Tuesday, April 04, 2006

PLUS

Enthusiasm and cooperation of students in general, especially 3K & 3L

Coverage of information sufficient

Content of activities better / Lots of knowledge shared with them

Recruited enough people in the OT, flexible OT in situations

MINUS

Cooperation level in 3J was lower than the other classes

Bad time management / logistics

Improper location (especially where scattering of ashes took place) for certain parts of programme

Action plan badly done, not detailed enough unlike lesson plan for teachers

Not the whole OT is present for every meeting, in part due to poor communication but also due to hectic schedules of people

Poor communications between OT members

Did not plan for what ifs - foreseeable / unforeseeable circumstances, wet weather plan etc. Very risky.

SUGGESTIONS

Action plan should be so good that last-minute trainers who read the action plan can also know what to do at any time (refer to teachers' record books for examples)

Should have a proper timeline for easier glancing of day's events.

Compiled by Wei Seng from OT.

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whispered 11:08 PM

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Planning Process:
I feel that this event was not really well organized. Many things were not sure even at the last minute and there is communication breakdown within the organizing team where some people were unsure of their own roles and details. This is probably due to the shaky foundation set by the initial stage of planning.

I feel that the first meeting is very important in setting the foundation of the future planning of the event. All members of the organizing team should be present on this meeting where the objectives, the programme outline, the allocation of tasks etc. should be set. Everyone should be clear on what they have to do so that in the subsequent meetings it will be much easier when everyone just update the rest of the organizing team on what they have done.

I think that what caused the blurriness of the people is that they were unable to attend the meetings and they were not updated on what was discussed during the meeting. There was also no proper record of meeting minutes during the meetings so that those unsure can check.

Actual Event:
The event actually ran quite smoothly despite the messy planning. The students were rather cooperative. For the 3K/3L classes, we had a briefing at an open space near the beach, and they were asked to fill up their pre-fieldtrip handout. Then they were asked to ponder on the mind map of the English handout.

Then, it was the beach cleanup. Most of them see this with a positive attitude and not just a CIP work. As it was very low tide at that time, many rubbish can be seen lying around and the students were quite active in clearing the rubbish. However, we did not realise that the area was a place where the Indians place the ashes with the urns of their deceased.

When we heard of the truth, I see that many were taken aback and the atmosphere became quite tensed. Even though religious and racial issues can be quite sensitive, but it was quite a meaningful lesson.

After the around 2-kilometer trek, 3K/3L met up with the 3I/3J where they also have a taste of the Biology module of viewing the different organism found in the sea. I can see that most of them were interested in it.

After that they have a short break and I see that they were enjoying themselves with their leisure activities i.e. soccer, playing with trash bags and wind. As for class picnic, 3L has their limited pool of food but there was sharing while 3K had a lot of food and much class spirit can be seen.

On the whole, I think that judging from the level of enjoyment from the Sec 3 students, it can be considered a success. However, improvements need to be made in terms of administrative matters.

By Terh Yee Jiunn

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whispered 10:55 PM

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