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1. Description of Our Community
The Total Defence of Singapore consists of 5 elements: Military Defence, Civil Defence, Economic Defence, Social Defence and Psychological Defence. Civil Defence is one of the most important in Total Defence. Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) - The Life Saving Force. Although Singapore is currently free from natural disasters and terrorists attack, there is no guarantee that this current state of peace, stability and prosperity will continue forever. Singaporeans must always be alert and be prepared for any unforeseen, widespread, and destructive disasters, either due to nature or due to human's negligence, selfishness or greediness. Singapore is a very densely populated island and she has many chemical plants and petroleum refineries. It also has many major civil structure projects. If natural disaster, man-made error or terrorists attack were to strike at this island, it would have very severe consequences. The SCDF is entrusted with the mission and duty to mitigate the effects of human lives loss and properties damage when a disaster strikes. However, the duty of the SCDF goes beyond disasters fighting, it involves disasters and crisis prevention too. Its role include educating the public to prepare and equip themselves with fire-fighting equipment, first aid boxes and bomb shelters in their high rise homes, maintaining a team which can deal with earthquakes and building collapses. SCDF has a team of paramedics and fire-fighting specialists, psychologists, commanders. It also wok closely with the Armed Forces and Police force to maintain peace and order in times of crisis.
2. Summary of Our Project
This project looks into the establishment of the SCDF, how it transformed itself from an old-fashioned and backward fire-fighting force to a highly-skilled, sophisticated and well-equipped civil disaster fighting team. It has saved countless lives and minimise many properties damage. You will get to know the principle, mission and records of all the incidents that lead SCDF to its present state. The major indidents are : Major fire broke out at Bukit Ho Swee estate in 1961, Robinson Department Store Fire at Raffles Place in 1972, Greek tanker explosion at Jurong Shipyard in 1978 and the Hotel New World Building Collapse in 1987. You will also be able to learn about the various equipment employed by the SCDF, and to a limited extent, about how SCDF operates and functions as one of the Singapore's most efficient and effective organisation.
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:more than 6
C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection
D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:more than 6
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
Our main problems were the formation of our team and shortage of meeting time and project time. As we were primary students advancing to the secondary level, we had just joined this new School. We like to do this project because we were interested to work on a project and we liked the project theme. We also wanted to contribte something to the school as well as to the community. The team members met to discuss the project only in January 2010. Our project team members are very committed to the project as we all came from the same Co-curriculum Club. We allocated tasks fairly and quickly. We learnt technology skill like Photoshop. Sometimes we had to bring our work home. As the deadline drew near, we had to rush and spent our one week break working on the project. This proved that we had endured through this major problem that could easily dissuade us in further doing of the project. It was a feat we could not call small.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
Our interest in this project gave us the motivation and strength to persevere. As we had volunteered to participate in this project, we had to commit our time to ensure we complete the task. We have learnt many things when working for the CyberFair Competition that we could not do so in the normal classroom like teamwork, research skill, communication and IT skills. We also learnt a lot from the organistion we are working on the project, that is the Singapore Civil Defence Force. When we visited the SCDF Heritage Gallery, we learnt to be more observant of the equipment, facilities there. We realized that teamwork is very important as everyone must do their part. We learnt to research for information from various resources like the internet, newspaper and we also consulted personnel working in SCDF. The tour officer for the Heritage Gallery was very helpful to provide us with the necessary information. We learnt technical skills like Photoshop and apply the skills immediately on the photographs taken.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
In Singapore, the Ministry of Education recommended the Baseline ICT Standards, which is a comprehensive list of ICT skills competencies, to be integrated into core subject areas and project work. In participating in the CyberFair Competition, the pupils were able to accomplish the following skills areas such as (1) Learning to operate in an interactive media environment, (2) Learning internet navigation and use search engines independently, (3) Learning to create, edit and format text with word processor, (4) Learning to produce and manipulate multimedia content like flash and PhotoShop, and (5) Learning online communication skill like wiki. At the same time, they learn to respect Intellectual Property and practice safe and responsible use of the internet.
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