School: Raffles Girls' School (Secondary)
    Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

10 students, ages from 14 to 16 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 28, 2002. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 1997,1998,1999,2000,2001

Classes and Teachers: Miss Foo L. L., Miss Tan B. C., Mdm Loy H. N.

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.rgs.edu.sg

1. Description of Our Community

Singapore is an island with diverse cultures and a rich history. Our multi-racial society makes up the community of Singapore. Though differing in their traditions and beliefs, the people of Singapore work hand-in-hand to achieve the goal of creating a Clean and Green Singapore. Everyone in the community, regardless of age, race, or religion, plays a vital role in achieving the above goal. The government introduces policies and schemes which encourages schools, companies and other organisations to actively participate in. This helps in establishing a pro-active community that cares, shares and unites, for Singapore.

2. Summary of Our Project

Singapore is well known for its cleanliness. It is an uncommon sight to see rubbish and litter on the roads. Singapore also has clean piped water and hence, you can drink water straight from the taps. The air in Singapore is clean and has limited pollutants. Therefore Singapore is able to live up to its expectations of a clean city. Despite being an urban city filled with skyscrapers, Singapore still manages to maintain a balanced ecosystem. This is what we define as green in our project – the conservation of nature. Through our site, visitors will get to learn about how Singapore is able to achieve the recognition of a 'Clean and Green City'. In addition, our site also serves as an education purpose for the global Internet community to find out what they can do to help keep their cities clean and green too.

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:1

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:not sure

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:4-6

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

Our school has five different computer labs which are well stocked with the latest technology. Thanks to the many different access points as well as the ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) line to an Internet Service Providers, provided in our school, we were able to gain easy, and reasonably fast access to the information superhighway.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

We faced many problems during the course of this project. The problems started to arise when we were choosing our topic. Singapore is a small nation. Hence, it is very difficult to find a topic that hasn’t been touched on by previous participants from Singapore. We ended up choosing the topic ‘Clean and Green Singapore’ because we decided to do something fun and close to our hearts. We also realise that most people living in Singapore take Singapore’s cleanliness and greenery for granted.

Our second problem was finding the time to meet up and work on the project. Each of us had different commitments – studies, piano lessons, art lessons etc. Hence, it was very difficult for us to find a time when all ten of us can meet up, except on Thursdays, which was our CyberNet Club meeting time. However, we felt that meeting for only 3 hours in a week was not enough. We therefore drew up a timetable and divided ourselves into groups so that different groups can meet on different days and we would still be able to get our work done. The next difficulty we encountered was working on different platforms. We started our project using i-Macs in the Magic Lab but later found out that it was difficult to transfer our files home so that we could work on them at home as most of us have PCs. Therefore we decided to transfer all of our files to the PCs in the Shaw Foundation Lab by means of email attachments. Though it was a little troublesome, we were thankful that we have noticed this flaw in the early parts of our project. True they say, that there is a silver lining in every black cloud.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Participating in CyberFair has certainly given us the opportunity to tell the world about our beloved country, Singapore. Most people have only heard that Singapore is a Clean and Green City but most do not know why and how, so we hope that the people of Singapore, and the Internet community of the world will learn all about it through our site.

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

Our CyberFair project addresses mainly pupils from primary schools to junior colleges. This is because it incorporates elements of science, humanities and national education. These elements help to build a sense of awareness and responsibility not only to our country, but also to the environment around us. Hence, corresponding with the national curriculum, which aims to create responsible and environment-friendly citizens of Singapore.

While working on this project, we realise that a 24-hour day is not enough to do everything - study for upcoming tests, piano lessons, completing the CyberFair project, etc. It is therefore important for us to have good time management skills. We also found a new way to study – in public transports on our way to and back from school, so that we could make up for the lost study time.

As the CyberFair project is a group effort, we practice trust and understanding among ourselves. We trust each other to do their respective jobs assigned. Apart from that, we also learn how to resolve conflicts that tend to arise during group discussions.

To better understand our CyberFair topic, we refer to books, magazines, the Internet, etc. We also consult teachers and experts if there are further queries.

Our school has always encouraged the use of IT-based learning. Service learning is also introduced to encourage us students, to give back to the community what it has given us. Our CyberFair site is our form of service learning as we are promoting Singapore to the world. We also hope to promote IT further in our school and to encourage other pupils to increase their interest in IT.

Learning through the Internet is certainly more effective than traditional methods as it provides both narrative and visual aid. This captivates the interest of the pupils.

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

We used a wide range of the latest information tools and technologies. The hardwares used include: PCs, i-Macs (before our problems arose), scanners, Sony Digital Mavica Digital Camera, normal cameras, telephones and handphones (for SMS).

Among the computer programmes that we use are Adobe Photoshop 6.0 (for photo-editing and image-creating), Macromedia Flash 5.0 (for creating animations), Macromedia Dreamweaver 3.0 (for web-building), Microsoft Word (for collaborating information), Internet Explorer 5 (for previewing our site), Win FTP (for uploading our site), and the email and ICQ (for facilitate communication with one another).

The computers and their programmes can be found in our school’s computer labs. We can borrow AVA equipment, such as the digital camera, from our school’s library.

We also have frequent trips to the numerous libraries in Singapore to look for information. Some of us also visited the national parks in Singapore to take photographs and to collect information about the park. Among the unique and unusual ways that we collect information occurred when we took photographs of dustbins and recycling bins. People were staring at us, thinking we were mad, as ten of us were crowding around a dustbin and taking photographs of it, as though as we have never seen a dustbin before.

The Internet has certainly been our most helpful tool. Not only did we obtain most of our information through the Internet, the Internet also facilitated our communication. This is especially helpful as one of our group members had to return to her hometown in Malaysia for the holidays. As overseas calls are very expensive, email and ICQ provided us with a cheaper alternative for communication. This was also one of our unusual ways of working on this project.

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

Our topic, ‘Clean and Green Singapore’, seemed like a subjective topic, biased towards Singapore, as we live in Singapore. However, we diminished the thought of biasness by obtaining opinions from tourists in Singapore. Most of them, when asked to describe Singapore in a phrase, stated that Singapore is ‘clean and green’.

We also communicated with the local community in Singapore by asking them what they think is ‘clean and green’ about Singapore. Many of them replied by commenting on Singapore’s air, water and trees. These seemed like vague answers but we took them seriously by using them to help in the planning of our site.

We contacted the Ministry of Environment, Singapore Environment Council and the National Parks Board to find out more about the schemes and programmes to keep Singapore clean and green. They were very helpful as they replied our emails promptly and never failed to clear our queries.

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

We feel that through our CyberFair site, we will be able to make a difference to not only the local community of Singapore, but also to the Internet community of the world. This is because our site touches on Singapore’s renowned recognition of a ‘Clean and Green City’.

We hope to create awareness among the local community of Singapore, which is starting to take Singapore’s cleanliness and greenery for granted. We also hope to promote Singapore to the world so that they will realise that Singapore is not just a miserable red dot at the equator. They will also find out why and how Singapore earns its name of a ‘Clean and Green City’ and what does the local community do to help keep Singapore clean and green.

The unique part of our presentation is the width and depth of our focus. We covered large and wide aspects of Singapore’s ‘clean’ and ‘green’ by compiling information from various sources. Visitors to our site will be able to learn about unique and interesting facts, information that cannot be obtained from textbooks.

We have certainly established new relationships with people in the community, for instance, with the people whom we have interviewed. However, most importantly, the relationship between our club members has certainly strengthened through the course of this project. We understand each other greatly and are able to be sensitive to one another’s feelings.

Our seniors, who are previous participants of CyberFair, have seen our site and we received feedback from both the negative and the positive point of view. Their critics allowed us to make changes to our site whereas their praises meant a lot to us. Our parents have also visited this site and are proud of our achievement. This really serves as a boost to us.

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

Firstly, we have to admit that this project would not have been possible without the help of our teachers, school, peers, families and the public.

The school has been very helpful in giving us the opportunity to take part in this project. They supported us along the way by providing us with all the equipment necessary for the building of our CyberFair site.

Our teachers have also been very supportive as they constantly asked if we were fine and if we needed additional information. One of our teachers, Miss Tan B. C., even had to be late for her dinner because she was helping us upload the site. Without her, our site would not exist and we would like to thank her for sacrificing her time for us.

Other club members were actively involved in this project as volunteers. They helped us in our research and also in the editing of photos. They were also involved in the discussion of a CyberFair topic. Our seniors provided us moral support by constantly giving us well wishes.

Our families also guided us along the way. They were the ones that had to endured our long string of complains at the dinner table if a problem occurred while doing our project in the afternoon.

Lastly, the public. They have been really great volunteers and without them, we will not be able to find out what they really like about Singapore.

To all these people mentioned above, thank you so much for your help and support.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

An important lesson that we have discovered while doing this project is not to judge a book by its cover.

Before we started on the project, there was an uneasy alliance between us. We lacked trust and confidence in the other group members hence things were not going smoothly in the group. We were divided though we were a team.

However, as the project carried on, we got to know each other better. After a series of discussion, which we openly criticised one another, we felt much better as there were nothing holding us back anymore.

That really helped as we no longer feel awkward when we are working together. Instead, we feel blessed and thankful to have each other as group members. We understood each other better and were now working as a team.

Working on the CyberFair project has really given us a chance to discover our friends and allow us to create a bond between us that cannot be broken.