Welcome to Bukit View Secondary School, Environmental Club

We all have a part to play to save our Earth.
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It has been awhile since the last post. CCA has to stand down for the students to prepare for their Mid year Exam.

On 2oth and 21st Jun, we went to Marina Barrage to setup an exhibition booth for the Singapore International Water Festival. 6 of the club's members namely, Hui Fang, Jun Wei, Vincent, Nikki, Farah and I (Zhen Fong) were there to represent the school. We showcased our school's environmental effort.

We were there also because our school is one of the 21 adopters of the Marina Reservoir. This year event was organised by Singapore Polytechnic together with PUB. To show our school support for the event, other students from our school took part in the "walk-on-water" competition and the amazing green race held on 21st Jun.

For both days, we took turns to mend the booth.

Through setting up the booth and preparing the things to tell people, my friends and I learned more about our school's environmental conservation effort.

Many people stopped by our booth. They felt that our products were very interesting and asked alot of questions. Some visitors also shared their experiences with us. It was really enriching to be able to engage the public.

After these 2 days of exposure, I became more confident in speaking to the public. I realised that many useful products can be made using unwanted materials e.g food and plastic containers, thus reducing wastage.

Signing Off,
Tan Zhen Fong, 2E4

Keep the Earth a conducive place to stay. Loving the tree.

9:50:00 PM

We all have a part to play to save our Earth.
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Today is Earth Day, Secondary 1 to 3 Enviromental Club members went to the Singapore Science Center Dalton Theatre to watch the Environment Show.

Students from other school too were there. There was a guy presenting about Climate Change.

He showed us a photo taken of Argentina mountain in 1948 and when the photo was taken in 2004. In 1948, the mountain was covered with ice but in 2004, the ice had all disappeared.

I did not know that global warming was good. The guy said that without global warming, the area would be too cold for people to survive.

After the lecture , we went to the climate change exibition. There was many things to learn there. There is the Sub-Zero area , Climate Flux , Climate Impact , Climate Ark and ClimEX.

The Sub-Zero area showcase scientific study at the poles.
The Climate Flux shows the difference between weather and climate and what influence weather and climate.
Climate Impact shows the effects of a warming planet on weather, ecology, healthcare and water resources.

Climate Ark features humanity's solutions for climate change.

ClimEX allows personal reflection on issues related to climate change.

On this trip, i have learn alot from the Environment Show and the Climate Change Exhibition. It taught me things which I did not know about global warming and climate change.

Happy Earth Day!!!

Keep the Earth a conducive place to stay. Loving the tree.

7:41:00 PM

We all have a part to play to save our Earth.
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This whole week, our school will be celebrating Earth day which falls on 22nd April, Wednesday. This is also in conjunction with our school 23rd Speech day on 17th April. The Guest of Honour will be Mr Tan Wee Hock, Divisional Director, 3P Network Division. Our school have organised many events for us.

This week will be very exciting.

The school has set up game booth from Tuesday to Friday where students will play the game during their recesses at the canteen and win prizes. The games and prizes are part of NEA outreach program phase I.

There are 2 assembly talks on proper use of recycling bins and horseshoe crab conservation.

There are 3 competition:

-Poster Design Competition for the Sec 4/5 students

-International Friendship Day Fashion Design Competition by making clothes with reused materials for the Sec 2 students
-Paint a Bin Competition for the Sec 1 students

Keep the Earth a conducive place to stay. Loving the tree.

8:00:00 PM

We all have a part to play to save our Earth.
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Clubs combined camp. (2 days 1 night)

Day 1

The camp starts off with the introduction to the whole camp and its facilators, and you can see the excitement on everyone's faces. We were all grouped together with the other CCA members to meet new friends.

Ice breakers were next to get to know the other members in each individual's group, we had our name tags, pasted to our arms.

Another way to build teamwork was eggs, 3 of them to be exact. Each individual group is needed to decorate the eggs and build some sort of hoster to hold them in and to protect the eggs throughout the whole camp. Breaking or stolen eggs were considered a penalty of course...

After that was games and the games do have a hidden educational thing to it. The games help promote teamwork and to demostrate that without teamwork, we will all fail.

Day 2

Day 2 was the eptimone of the camp, dragon boating (due to popular demand and the planner's decision) was the main event to the whole camp. We all psyched to get into the boats and say bon voyage from school for a while but of course we have to ensure our safety first. We all put on our bouyancy vests and we all set off. Dragon boating is the best example to teamwork, only a skilled person could move the boat alone and considering that all of us are ameteurs.

We had a race among the various groups and the group that came out first was none other than Group 3, We all had fun and went back to school for graduation night.

Graduation night for the graduating students is to thank the seniors for their 4 years of service to the CCAs they joined, the juniors did a performance for the seniors and we all went down to the canteen for a final dinner before leaving the school with a good memory in mind.

Keep the Earth a conducive place to stay. Loving the tree.

10:01:00 PM

We all have a part to play to save our Earth.
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the entrance of the Marina Barrage

On the 25th of march, the Environmental club went to the marina barrage.The Marina Barrage is actually build to keep seawater from entering Singapore's river. Marina Reservoir will boost Singapore’s water catchment from half to two-third’s of the country’s land area.

The Marina Barrage is the result of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s vision nearly two decades ago when he envisaged damming the mouth of the Marina Channel to create a freshwater reservoir.

It has a 3 in 1 benefits

Water supply
Flood control
Lifestyle attraction

Water supply
Local catchment water is one of the four national tap. The others are imported water , NEWater and desalinated water. With the Barrage in place , it is able to change a body of fresh water through natural flushing for 1 to 2 years. As the Marina Barrage is one of the pillars of local water supply , it will meet more than 10% of Singapore's country water demands.

Flood Control
The Marina Barrage is part of a comprehensive flood control scheme to alleviate flooding in the low-lying areas in the city such as Chinatown, Boat Quay, Jalan Besar and Geylang. During heavy rain, the series of nine crest gates at the dam will be activated to release excess storm water into the sea when the tide is low. In the case of high tide, giant pumps which are capable of pumping an Olympics-size swimming pool per minute will drain excess storm water into the sea.

Lifestyle Attraction
As the water in the Marina Basin is unaffected by the tides, its water level will be kept constant all year round. This is ideal for all kinds of recreational activities such as boating, windsurfing, kayaking and dragonboating etc.

Looking at the dam from the Green Roof

At the Marina Barrage , we climbed up a slope with grasses on the top. At the top was a picnic area. There were some people having picnic except that it was very hot. The view from the top was very nice.

We could see the difference between Singapore's water and the seawater. In my opinion, Singapore's water was much darker and dirtier than the seawater.

After that we went to Sustainable Singapore Gallery (SSG). There are six galleries inside.

Gallery 1 : Showcases the eviromental challenges of today. Central to this gallery is the " Organic Tree" llluminated by a play of three colours, it symbolises the uncertain state of our present enviroment. They had a wall made entirely of NEWater bottles.

Gallery 2: Rewinding back a few decades, gallery 2 recounts the clean-up of the Singapore and Kallang Rivers. In 1970s, both rivers were like open sewer, choked with rubbish and emitting an unbearable stench. It tells you about how Minister Mentro Lee Kuan Yew change it to the current rivers.

Gallery3: Features the Active, Beautiful, Clean waters Programme, launched by PUB in 2007. See the programme in action, as waterways throughout Singapore are revamped and beautified.

Gallery 4: See the innovative barrage model demonstrating how the Marina Barrrage works.

Gallery 5: Get acquainted with Singapore's careful planning and management of its limited land area to maximise its potential.

Gallery 6: Displays an unwavering commitment from our 3p [ People, Private, Public ] sectors to care for the environment and water. Everyone has a stake in keeping the environment sustainable.

My Reflection
From this trip i have learnt about the different ways Singapore gets its water, how the Marina Barrage started, the way they help the environment and meet Singapore's demand for water supply.

Acknowledgement: The photos are taken by Lincoln, Kelvin at the Marina Barrage. We would like to thank the authorities for allowing us to take photos.

Keep the Earth a conducive place to stay. Loving the tree.

8:31:00 PM

We all have a part to play to save our Earth.
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As everyone might know, Water is life and without it we all will inevitably die, and the us going to the marina baradge shows how singapore (known for its limited water resources) survives on its own instead of buying water.

The Marina Barrage is not only a huge Dam completed last year to hold off water but the latest lifestyle attraction.

It sure is a great chance to be able to visit the Marina Barrage.

As most of the barrage is above sea level we were able to get a pretty decent view of the whole island and it was a beautiful day that day.

Here's a picture of dam holding the water and if you haven't notice, the water seems different in colour on both side of the dam.

The Marina barrage is not only a dam but it has its educational points too, with a whole exhibition telling us about the dam and the history of it, plus the whole exhibition is really artistic in its own very special way.

The exhibiton also showcase a scale demostration of the dam in good detail too.

This is a piston that opens up the gate that holds the water.

And this is the gate itself.

We thought we were given an opportunity to see the dam opening but in the end, the dam was only scheduled to open after the rain so we were a little disappointed but the whole trip was well worth it.

We would like to thank PUB and the Marina Baradge for the photos taken during this amazing trip.....

Keep the Earth a conducive place to stay. Loving the tree.

7:08:00 PM

We all have a part to play to save our Earth.
_____________________

On 18th March, some of our school selected Junior Environmental Ambassador(JEA) went to the JEA workshop. The workshop started from 8.00 a.m in the morning to 5.00 p.m in the evening. At 9.30 a.m, the training started. We were all divided into different groups. There was a guy talking about
1) Global Warming,
2) Waste Minimisation,
3) Public Health,
4) Dengue Fever and different roles we play,
5) Our Roles and Responsibility,
6) Earth Hour and
7) the JEA pledge with a projector.

Global Warming:

The year 2007 was the eighth warmest on record. 12 of the 13 warmest year have now occurred in the last 13 years. The period 2001 - 2007 is 0.21 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous decade. Climate change is impossible to hide and ought to be impossible to ignore. Artic sea ice has declined to the lowest levels on record and studies suggest that two-thirds of the world's polar bear population will be gone by 2050. As average temperature increases, habitats, species and people are threatened by Global Warming.

Waste Minimisation:

People can help to stop global warming by reusing, recycling and reducing. People should buy paper bags instead of using plastic bags when shopping from grocery. Every Wednesday, people who go and shop from grocery have to bring their own bags or they will have to play 10cents for each plastic bag they use. Singapore have place different kinds dustbins for different materials for recycling too.

Public Health:

Anti-Littering Campaign, Government have made fines for litter bugs.

Why people litter?
Reasons:
-The litter bin was too far away.
-Too troublesome to hold onto the litter.
-Other people are also doing it.
-There was already litter there.
-Who cares? This is not my home.
-It just fell out of my pocket.
-It was only one small piece, it won't matter.
-Cleaners will clean up for me.
-Difficult to find a bin.

If everyone thinks about it this way, alot more people will litter.

Ugly habits.

Singaporeans have ugly habits when using the toilets.
1-Urinating or defecating outside the toilet bowl.
2-Squatting on the toilet seats.
3-Not flushing the toilet after use.
4-Wetting the floor.
5-Littering.
6-Drawing graffiti on the walls.

Dengue Fever:

5 easy steps

1st step - Change water in vases/ bowls every other day. Add sand granular insecticide to water.
2nd step - Remove water from flower pot plates every other day
3rd step - Turn over all storage containers
4th step - Inform your parents or any adults in your household to cover bamboo pole holders when not in use.
5th step - Inform your parents or any adults in your household to clear blockages and put Bti insecticide in roof gutters at least once a month

Roles and Responsibilities

Junior Environment Ambassadors
-A true champion is not defined by the abilities they have, but by what they choose to do with those abilities.
Spider man~With great authority comes great responsibility

Earth Hour:

1,858 cities, towns and municipalities in 81 countries have already committed to VOTE EARTH for Earth Hour 2009, as part of the worlds first global election between Earth and global warming
On the 28th March from 8.30pm to 9.30pm, 81 countries will off their lights for 1 hour Be part of the Earth Hour - tell your friends, tell your story. Make a difference!

JEA pledge

-I am a Junior Environment Ambassador, the difference begin with me!
-Every small action I take, has a great impact on the earth.
-Others can protect planet earth, So can I!

After the long presentation, our groups gathered and we introduced our self to each other. After that we had to discuss and perform a play with the facilitators guiding us. It took us a long time to discuss which role to play, who should act it out and making the props for the play. In the end, the facilitator decided to make it easier by asking us to pick up a piece of paper and check which role we are playing. We finished practicing the play at about 10.30am or 11.30am i didn't know.

We had a break and lunch before the play. The guy which presented said that there will be the best narrator award, best actor award and the best play award.

Once the break finish, we started the play. I find all the play quite interesting and meaningful as they concern about all of what was presented on the screen. They guy said that he will announce the winning results after we came back from the trip to the temple. I was quite curious about what was so special about it.

The bus ride was about 15 to 30minutes and we arrived at the temple. We had to climb up 3 levels which did not seem to be three levels. The height of the temple was very tall and only had 3 levels. When i reached the 3rd level, i found out that the temple used solar panels for energy and heating up their water from showering. There was this old man which bald head explaining in very clear English to us about the solar panels and how it help heat up the water for them. They even showed us the two windmill which they have. I now understand why we had to climb so high.

After the trip, we came back exhausted. We did not win the play competition but at least we know that we had tried our best. Then our facilitators gave us our JEA badges. I lost mine last year. :p We had our photos taken. A fun and a formal photo. The facilitators told us to exchange phone numbers so that we can contact each other next time. Then we waited 30minutes for the bus to come at 5.30pm and went back to school at 6.00pm

Personal reflection

I felt that this JEA workshop was interesting but tiring. It has helped me understand more about whats global warming, public health and how to prevent dengue fever. The most exciting part was visiting the temple and getting to know new friends from different schools and levels.

Keep the Earth a conducive place to stay. Loving the tree.

6:48:00 PM