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1. Description of Our Community
Our community consists of a small tropical island nestled in the tranquil blue seas of the Straits of Johor. The all-too-common misconception that we belong to China or Indonesia is indeed a fallacy- we are an independent community with diverse races and beliefs. We are a democratic society therefore we believe in equal inalienable rights of every person regardless of differences, perceptible or imperceptible. We believe in a resourceful, decisive government who can come up with alternative sources to combat significant problems. Likewise, our government has supervised the production of NEWater in an efficient yet open manner. We have thus so far in 40 years managed to develop an emboldened, urban city with many futuristic technologies and promising prospects due to our competent government.
Click http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-577902-map_of_singapore-I for a map of Singapore.
2. Summary of Our Project
The small size of Singapore although allows it to be more easily and effectively managed, it is a nation of diminutive size and resources. We face many problems such as water shortage. NEWater tackles this in a manner that could not be more productive. All details are covered and full advantage is taken of today’s advanced technology. Over the years, we have been constantly buying a large percentage of water from Johor Bahru in Malaysia and a minimal percentage from Indonesia; yet unfortunately it is financially pressing. Thus, it would be a foolish understatement to claim that NEWater is of utmost importance to Singapore as a stabilizing factor of our nation’s future. We have observed that many peers, relations and community have developed a psychological barrier towards NEWater on the discovery that a large percentage of NEWater is purified sewage water. Seeing NEWater as significant to this very extent, we intend to teach the public about NEWater in order to break this psychological barrier that many have developed. Our project is, essentially, a venture with the objective of educating the public about the nature of NEWater so that they may not bear a foolish mistaken belief that NEWater is impure. We intend to impress upon them all relevant information about NEWater by putting in use the most fitting and conducive variables for their learning such as visual impact. Our project product will be a website with many necessary details about NEWater. As we do the project, we bear in mind our objective to allow the public to easily process information about the production of NEWater that will conquer countless water problems that is current in today’s society.
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:4-6
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
Below are some problems we faced. * We had the disadvantage of software restriction, as only 2/5 of our team had the extremely necessary software required for successful completion of the components in our project, such as Macromedia Fireworks, Macromedia Flash and Photoshop. In order to overcome this minor technicality, we decided to meet up regularly at after-school periods to use the pre-installed software in the school’s computers. * All the pupils in our Cyberfair Team had numerous other imperative commitments such as Co-Curricular Activities of which the timing clashed with each other’s. Thus, there was no common time to meet up. We decided that to be the most productive that we could be, we should duly assign fragments of the work to every team member- in other words, split up the workload. We did just that, with some people doing the flashes, others reports, and yet others research. Every week we rotated our tasks, so everyone would have a chance to be adequately well versed in every aspect of the project and learn properly. Conversely, we had to know what each other were doing. Thus, we would meet up at least once a week during recess time to share with each other what we were currently working on. We would then enlighten each other as to any new ideas that we had, and at the same time take comprehensive notes on what we had discussed and utilize the notes for reference later on. * Slow and uncooperative Internet connection in school is another obstacle we faced. We learnt that the hard way, after various files of absolute importance were unable to be retrieved due to a sluggish Internet connection in the school computers which was reluctant to direct us to http://www.hotmail.com/ Hotmail server that we depended on so largely for transfer and sharing of files. Consequently, we got adapted to using fast-loading servers such as http://www.ripway.com/ Ripway to share and transfer files. * Also, we could not come to a common decision at times. Case in point, at the beginning of the project we could not agree on which topic to do. We introduced both positive and negative points of each topic to each other, and fortunately we all came to a compromise- Environmental Awareness. We decided that the scope of that topic content was simply too large and so we decided to focus on NEWater.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
Purified sewage water be essentially pure and purely essential.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
It taught us many principles and ethics that we would not have learnt otherwise: teamwork, resourcefulness and focus. Teamwork is a crucial part of projects, assignments and task etc. We learnt how to come to a consensus civilly and splitting the load equally in the course of doing this project, and we believe that this will assist us greatly in our future chores. We also learnt to be resourceful in whatever you do. As we had limited resources, we had to improvise frequently and make do with whatever we had. This will also aid us in future. We also learnt the art of focus. When we were given a limited time, we had to focus our entire being on what we were doing so that we were at our most productive. Also, there were the technical pieces of information, such as how to use certain programs etc. We are positive that this experience will prove useful in our future projects and curriculum in school. All in all, this project has taught us many lessons that would help us greatly in our coursework, curriculum standards and everyday life and has contributed to us as individuals.
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