Paving the Way for Future Young Innovators
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Little toy cars were zipping everywhere, scaling walls and defying gravity. It looked like a topsy-turvy world, out of this reality. But it was just physics in action - an example of how future students of the School of Science and Technology (SST) will be learning in a fun and engaging way.
SST held its first Open House on 25 May, and curious visitors (including the Minister for Education, Dr Ng Eng Hen) had the opportunity to see what lessons will be like when the specialised independent school opens in 2010. Visitors were also treated to a glimpse of plans for the school's permanent campus, which will be completed in 2012.
With a strong focus on applied learning, SST will encourage students to learn by experimenting, tinkering, and by taking a project through all its stages - from concept to design to building the models. The new campus is also designed to provide an environment that's conducive for bright minds to spark off good ideas.
Here's a look at some of the school's key features:
Located at the junction of Clementi Road and Commonwealth Avenue West, the new SST campus will retain as much of the existing green spaces as possible. To harvest rainwater for the school’s usage, there will be water-retention ponds on the roof and eco-gardens within the campus.
SST’s curriculum will focus on applied learning, where students will be challenged to make connections between what they learn in the classroom and what’s in the real world. Here, visitors get a feel of how students will learn to solve problems involving perimeter, volume and surface area, and also explore designing cost-effective packaging.
Students will learn about Newton’s laws of motion, pressure and Bernoulli’s Principle, all though a fun session playing with the vacuum car. The vacuum car relies on the difference in air pressure acting on it to ascend walls or ceilings with little effort.
Biotechnology is a new Applied Subject (an “O”-level equivalent subject) offered by Ngee Ann Polytechnic to upper secondary students. SST students taking this subject will have opportunities to pursue independent and collaborative research experiments.
SST students taking Biotechnology will learn how to identify, isolate and grow micro-organisms, grow plants in tissue culture, and understand the techniques for manipulating and analysing DNA.
Another Applied Subject open to SST students will be Media Studies, which is designed to train students to be media-literate individuals who can critically evaluate the media and use it to communicate effectively. There will be a new Media Studio that allows students to broadcast live news feeds to the school and on the web.
Using technology will be a way of life for students of SST. The new campus will be fully wireless-enabled, and there’ll be opportunities to use various IT tools for lessons. For example, Group Scribbles (shown above) is a nifty tool used in English and Chinese language lessons to let students learn and think of ideas in both textual and graphical forms.
At SST, each class will have only 20 to 25 students. There will be many collaboration spaces on the new campus for students to interact and engage in discussions. Flexible classrooms with foldable dividing walls can be opened up for two classes to interact. The new campus will also have a “Superhall”, which doubles as an indoor sports hall and a multi-purpose hall with flexible seating arrangements.