School: River Valley High School
    Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

12 students, ages from 14 to 16 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 30, 2002. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2002

Classes and Teachers: Ms Chan Huey Jing

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.moe.edu.sg/schools/rvhs

1. Description of Our Community

Singapore is a highly urbanized country situated strategically at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, an island of 646 square kilometers. A multi-racial society of four main races - Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasian, the size of the population is about 3.5 million.

Singapore, from a small fishing village has developed into a bustling city of advanced technology and how a miserly populated island has transformed into a richly populated country whose fame has invited foreigners and tourists from all over the world to its landmark. Needlessly to say, the number of tourists who flock in and out has been on the rise, following a greater variety of places to visit.

2. Summary of Our Project

We want a combination of key focus on this topic to bring out the two main ideas of Singapore- its development and its famous title as being the Green City. This title did not come easy. It is a continuous cycle of effort put in by both the people and the government to establish a clean and green environment for everyone to set foot on.

Thus, our team decided to use the most symbolic place of interest to bring out one of our key ideas- Botanic Garden. Next, Singapore's ability to advance and its achievement can be clearly depicted by this particular place- Snow City. The latter is a portrayal and a picture that tells us how scientific developments and the efforts of technology can create a different season for the locals. Singapore is a tropical country and yet, Singaporeans are able to experience winter right in its own place, its own landmark without crossing the seas to other countries which offers the four seasons of summer, spring, autumn and winter. Technology, development and its fruits of success combines into a significant prospect of our community. We introduce how this success comes about, the input and output of it and its popularity among the people.

Moreover, we want to establish a greater insight in two particular places of interests by capturing its main attractions and differences. Thus, some specialities and interesting features of the places will be described in the site. For surfers who have not visited the places, surfing the site will incite their interest and be known that Singapore is not such a lifeless place after all. At least, there is a 'Garden of Eden' and a 'Winter Palace' waiting for them in Singapore.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:more than 50%

B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:none

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:not sure

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:1

E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):

Our classrooms are not connected to the Internet. Students use the Computer Labs in our school to gain access to the Internet.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

After we had chosen our place of local attractions to research on, we had to send requests to the organisations for interviews, but some of them did not reply and we had to change what we originally wanted to do. Some community organizations do not have enough pictures and more precise information in their web sites or pamphlets. Interviews are essential then to let us get more information.

Good time management is difficult as members have difficulty in having enough time to do homework or attend remedial. It was almost impossible to arrange meetings after school, so, informing the members about the meeting in at least two days advance would give us ample time to reschedule out activities.

We made use of weekends and the one-week March holidays to focus all our attention on the project.

With homework and tests when school reopened, we felt hard-pressed for time and on many occasions, due to the tremendous pressure we faced; we encountered many different opinions during our discussions. It was indeed a challenging and enriching yet tiring task to manage our time between schoolwork and the project. We have put in our best effort in trying to strike a balance between the two.

We found that we were lacking in knowledge of various webpage-making skills such as HTML and Java Script. We therefore had to refine and self-learn HTML and Macromedia Flash 5 in order to complete the project and make it look spectacular.

Researching was a problem, as the library does not have many books that features the local tourists attractions located in Singapore, especially tourist attractions which are quite new such as Snow City. We had to interview the organizations and get more information about it. We also had to get pamphlets about various places and research on them to get a clearer image in choosing a suitable tourist attraction for our project.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Open your eyes and widen your vision; there is nothing man cannot achieve - our message to be conveyed to the surfers. The establishment of Snow City has shown that we can create miracles despite our tropical climate as long as our hearts are put into it. Also in the midst of completing this project, we came to realise how Science can transform lives into a more eventful stage and how unity between each and every of us can bring out the best in every task.

6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?

We have learnt many skills such as acquiring new knowledge, understanding the demands of project work, teamwork, interpersonal and interview skills and IT knowledge.

Participating in this Cyberfair competition has helped us gain an invaluable amount of knowledge and has widened our scope of IT. We explored different media resources to obtain as much information as possible.

We were able to learn and know more than what our textbooks provide.We learnt the importance and role tourism plays in our economy.

We practised effective time management so as to meet deadlines. We learnt to organise our time more efficiently in the course of our schoolwork, especially during tests and examinations and prioritising our work.

Through interviews and interactions with some of the public relation officers, we built up our confidence in our oral skills. We have learnt many important lessons through this experience - lessons that go beyond the classroom.

We are now better equipped to deal with the complex questions posed to us about our attractions. We have discovered more about the throb and pulse of our nation's identity.

Also, we have gained a look at how advancement in technology can contribute to the constant evolution of our local attraction scene.

We learnt how to extract important information and the materials we wanted. This helped developed our research and analysis skills.

As a group, we sat down and discussed things thoroughly, learning to compromise with one another’s ideas. We learnt to focus on the end-objective, which is the completion of the website, and overcame our difficulties.

In terms of interpersonal and interview skills, we learnt how to communicate with external organizations via telephone conversations, interviewing personnel and writing e-mails. We realised that doing this project has undoubtedly developed our thinking skills and strengthened our mental ability to work under stress and pressure.

1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your CyberFair project?

Telephone Telephones enabled the team members to communicate effectively.We used the telephone to contact people and organisations to ask related questions. We called each other up and discussed our project with one another.

Camera - (SONY and Panasonic digital and video cameras) Video Cameras and digital cameras from the school help us in presenting more information and interactivity for surfers of our website. When doing our research and interviews, we took photographs of people and places.

Computer Software Many tools were used while completing our project. Various information tools which are being used such as the digital camera, the video camera,scanner and softwares such as Adobe Photoshop 5.5, Microsoft Word,Notepad and Macromedia Flash 5.

Microsoft Frontpage was our primary web-publishing software as all of us were trained in using this software in school. Basic word processing programs, Notepad and Microsoft Word, were used to type all our text and saved in HTML format. We also used Macromedia Dreamweaver to do some advanced coding.

We used the Adobe PhotoShop 5.0 to design our own graphics (e.g., navigation bar, buttons, logo, banner,etc.)

These information tools and technologies helped us a lot on out project. Most of them were very advanced and easy to use.

We employed Macromedia Flash 5 for creating interactive flash movies and productions where people could enjoy the high-end animation effects that enhances our website.

Chat programs like Hotmail MSN Messenger helped us greatly as it allowed the team members to conference at the same time. Using these programs, we could communicate and discuss in the comfort of our homes and yet get important things done.

Libraries We made frequent trips to our own school library as well as the National Library and other Communitiy Libraries to do research. We borrowed relevant books on local attractions in the Reference section of the National Library.

2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person.

The ambassador is the one who conveys the message to the public about the project and we have done so by communicating with the management of the places in person. We need to establish contact with them and we managed to gain their support.

In our quest to contact eminent personalities within the local attraction community, we successfully realised our goal to collate and present a collective yet unique picture of the vibrant tourism scene in Singapore. The range and depth of colours of our local attraction is, metaphorically speaking, amazing - for a small country with a population numbering just over 4 million.

We obtained the permissions for collaboration from several public relations officers of the local tourism industry and allow their all-important knowledge to be displayed on our humble site.

We took many photographs of local attractions from many angles. When we approached the officials or person-in-charge for help, they were very polite and obliging when they knew that we were doing a project on local attractions.

Moreover, in doing this project, we were acting as ambassadors in trying to express the significance of local attractions, an introduction of the places and how they signify Singapore's progress and its development. By going online, we were creating publicity for the project by casting awareness to online surfers.

Our step to present the local attraction scene is a significant development for our small but thriving tourism industry and we think we have contributed in our own way by helping to spread awareness of the local tourism industry to locals and people from overseas. In this way we are considered ambassadors.

3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?

We have chosen to cover a more dynamic, more unique section of our tourism industry. Snow city and Botanic Gardens are some of the most well known attractions, which are also suitable places for children to learn new facts. Hopefully, through our site, people would visit the places and benefit from it as they can learn and share their experiences with others. Actually, local attractions are 'money makers' for Singaporeans. Singapore became a prosperous country not only due to investment. Local attractions do a part in helping our economy.

By putting up the website on the Internet, people can know about local attractions. People from nations could come in and know more about these interesting places. We believe that some attention has been brought to the local tourism industry within our country through our efforts.

4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?

We sought the advice of our teacher in-charge Ms Chan Huey Jing, who provided us with valuable suggestions and ways to carry out our research. She played an important role in assisting us in editing the text and gave us many pertinent points as to how we should go about doing the website. Moreover, she did not give us any pressure and this enabled us to maximise our full potential.

When we visited the local attractions, the officer provided us with abundant information. Some even gave us a mini tour around the facilities available in the attractions. Most of our help came from the members of our tourism industry, who were certainly busy people but were generous with their contributions to our humble efforts. Through them we obtained their long years of experiences, without which our representations of our attractions would be much more shallow and superficial.

Friends and classmates gave us moral support, motivating us to continue working, despite the exhaustion we felt, especially during the last leg of the competition. They kept encouraging us, volunteering much information to help us. Classmates and friends also critiqued our work during the process, providing us with pointers to further improve on our work.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

We found animals and insects such as squirrels and butterflies in Botanical Gardens. We chased the squirrel around the Botanical Gardens to take photographs but it was too fast and outsmarted us.

We had our lunch during our visit to Botanical Gardens and feasted on cheap and tasty food which was commonly not seen in local attractions as the food was more expensive.

During our visit to Snow City, we experienced cold temperature for the first time. For the first time, we saw snow with our own eyes! We also gained access to the Snow Lodge which was a function room and we were surprised at the facilities - jukeboxes, barbecue pits, bar and many others.

We are very honoured and proud to have created this project to convey a sense of "Care And Unite". We felt lucky to be in Singapore to enjoy such interesting attractions.

We learnt time management, overcoming difficulties, research skills, teamwork and collaboration and handling relationships and conflicts at the end of the project.