School: CHIJ St Nicholas Girls' School
    Singapore, N/A - Does Not Apply, Singapore

16 students, ages 15-16 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 9, 2016. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

Classes and Teachers: Infocomm Club, Ong Wei Jian, Lau Yong Gnee, Choo Teck Chan, Otto Tham

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://

1. Description of Our Community

As a humble, little island, our local communities are exceedingly close-knitted and unified. Common spaces are utilised by anyone and everyone with little to no restrictions. Not confined by our differences, we share and accommodate each other's unique culture, defining ourselves as a multi-racial society. Singapore, as a collective whole, share a mutual goal of bringing our country to greater heights. What did we do to achieve this? As a multi-racial community we are constantly surrounded by people different from us, in race or religion, we respect each race's culture and practices and learn more about their race by bonding together in school or in community center activities. In Singapore we try to keep our environment clean by reusing reducing and recycling, recycling bins are commonly located at the lobby of HDB flats where residents can gather all their recyclable materials and dispose it there instead of disposing them into our trash cans which go to waste. Community centers also hold many recycling activities to teach the residents how to save the environment by following the 3Rs, Students can also showcase their ideas on how to tackle environmental problems through projects and presentations.

2. Summary of Our Project

We are united with a common goal, that being preserving what we cherish. Our project intends to enlighten people on how our local attractions manage to gather a crowd, and more urgently, why immediate measures should be implemented to prevent and conserve our places of interests to attend a more preferable future. This is of extreme importance, observed in global efforts to educate youngsters to contribute, nurturing participants of environmental endeavors. Through our webpage, we aspire to impact youths, and inspire them to take action towards raise awareness for our collective habitat.

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

We encountered a multitude of challenges of varying difficulty. Due to the large number of people in our team, brainstorming ideas and dividing the workload was extremely time-consuming, as many had conflicting interests. However, we were willing to put aside our personal interest and focus on the interest of the whole group instead. Finding a common time that could accommodate the different timings of the whole group was additionally inconvenient as many schedules were conflicting. Resolving this came with a price, we had to compromise and gather in smaller groups, sacrificing insightful feedbacks from teammates that might not have been able to be present. Regretfully, uncooperative and unmotivated members were unwilling to stick to the schedule. This resulted in many halts in progress, leading to work below our expectations being produced. Thankfully, our dear teachers realised the situation early and motivated us to be productive. Our lost time was recovered and we managed to create our desired website.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

It was a refreshing and unique experience that allowed us to better understand and appreciate some of Singapore’s world-famous tourist attractions by envisioning the future that we would like.

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

When researching for this project, we made sure that our resources were reliable and accurate by using information from official websites, We also ensured that permission was obtained from the artists before using their work for our project. Even after obtaining permission, we were mindful to acknowledge the artists and thank them for allowing us to use their work for this project. This allowed us to ensure that their work was properly credited and that we were abiding with the copyright law. We also learnt how to work together despite being in a bigger group that we were accustomed to. Fortunately, we were privileged to be allowed to use curriculum time to work on this project, so we did not have to race against time to finish this project. Although there were conflicts at times due to the different working styles that some of us had, we eventually managed to resolve all conflicts and complete this project successfully.

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

Making use of our mandatory Co-curricular Activities sessions twice a week, our team members gather to research and consolidate information in our HP ProBook 440 G2, one per student, in the computer lab. A wide range of softwares were utilised to create and develop this meaningful and enriching website. Google Drive was particularly useful for the storage and exchanging of ideas. The mentioned suite allows communications between users in real-time, files accessible anywhere and anytime. As a cloud platform, large discussions were made possible online. On the wide web, information is readily available. We utilised instagram's diverse array of photos, granted with permission. Additional visuals were acquired with personal compacts camera taken during our own free time. With Adobe Photoshop and Pixlr, we enhanced our photo quality and removed unnecessary disturbances to better our pictures. After much consideration, our website builder of choice was Wix. With its simple drag-and-drop options, it is usable, even without prior knowledge. What enticed us the most, however, was the free hosting that provided us with a platform to express and develop a page that exemplifies our thoughts and views on our selected topic. The opinions of close friends and relatives also greatly enhanced the quality of our work. We express our lingering gratitude to them.

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

To gather the relevant information needed to complete this project, we tapped on various sources such as social media for photos of the places of interest. We had to act as ‘ambassadors’ and spokespersons for our project whenever we asked for permission to use photos or videos that would add value to our project. It was of utmost importance to be able to explain the purpose of our request to use their work so that the owners of the work would be convinced and consent to their work being used. Hence, we had to be extremely clear about the details of the competition in order for us to be able to explain about the competition to others. Some of our members also specially made a trip to the places of interest mentioned in our project. When enquiring about the places of interest in person, our members had to ensure that they looked presentable and were polite throughout their inquiry so that members of the public would continue to have a positive impression of us and may be more influenced to go out of their way to assist us. In summary, all our members had to always be mindful of our behaviour, be it online or offline, so that we can be excellent ‘ambassadors’ and spokespersons for our Cyberfair project.

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

Though small, our nation has lots to offer. We sincerely hope our project is able to positively impact our community by increasing their awareness on the attractions available, both natural and man-made. This provides a learning opportunity for us participants as well as web users, increasing national awareness of the origin and embedded meaning within. We strive to strengthen the conviction of belonging among our community, in turn eliminating the unfamiliarity between each citizen. Everyone shares a common home regardless of one's status and wealth. We encourage community bonding through various iconic sites. This heightens their social awareness of the beauty and vulnerability of both our natural and man-made habitats. We as Singaporeans have to realise the extent of damage we are contributing and our actions of today will be the consequences of tomorrow. We aspire to inspire and motivate the youth to start taking actions to reduce the negative impacts. Hopefully, our community will develop an understanding of why current issue is so important.

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

Despite their overwhelming schedule in this fast-paced society, it was heartwarming to find members of the community helping us. For example, our school, for providing the much required equipments, professional cameras and computer softwares, to aid us in the completion of the project. Our teachers, Mr Ong Wei Jian, Mr Lau Yong Gnee, Mr Otto Tham, Ms Choo Teck Chan, repeatedly offered helpful suggestions and advice, never failing to ensure that we were on task. We are very eternally grateful for their introduction to this wonderful well-thought competition that fully allowed to display our potential to the fullest. Additionally, we would like to extend our gratitude to our seniors, previous CyberFair contestants, for giving us valuable insights on possible problems we may encounter. Thanks to this, common errors were avoided and our project was smooth-sailing. Throughout this whole journey, club members and classmates were all supportive and were confident in our abilities. This has boosted our morale and encouraged us multiple times through periods of darkness. Continuing on, online websites and bloggers have provided necessary information that were crucial in propelling our project forward. We are also appreciative of those whose materials left an impression, but could not be used in the end. Not to forget, our precious families for their emotional support and never giving up on us. This would not have been possible without the people mentioned above and we express our heartfelt gratitude to them.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

As a result of our cyberfair journey, we can definitely observe a heightened sense of fondness between members. Turns out, forcing people to work outside their individual cliques, outside their ‘comfort zone’ was the optimal way to create opportunities for both learning and bonding. Without our usual partners, we were expected to communicate efficiently with our respective partners. This resulted in unforeseen friendships in different environments. We discovered numerous solutions to problems we didn’t even realise we had, until our kind instructor pointed it out. It was certainly valuable insight. One of the my own experience was with a faulty laptop, unable to connect to the school’s wifi. Promptly, our teacher extended a helping hand, and directed us to the existing LAN cable. It was such an eye-opener as I did not expect the solution be that simple. The project has yet to lead to any awards or recognition but we wholehearted wish it does. I would absolutely recommend this project to others, and hope that it would impact them as it did with us.