Sunday, September 25, 2005
5th SEF Oratory Competition 2005
It’s my turn to blog! Feeling guilty bout letting Amanda and Zhong Ning blog for me for the past entries…
Our participation in the oratory competition last Saturday was indeed a unique yet fruitful experience. The 5th Scholastic Environment Fund (SEF) Student Forum and Oratory Competition on the Environment 2005 was jointly organized by SEF and St Andrew’s Junior College in a bid to provide opportunities for the younger generation to think across disciplines and sharpen their verbal skills in the process. The theme for this year is “Green Cities: Plan for the Planet!” and teams were instructed to identify a pertinent environmental issue and after detailed analysis, present their possible solutions in front of a panel of judges.
Our presentation title was “Mangrove Conservation & Reforestation”, as this was closely interwoven with our RS and could be done in accordance with Leadership Service Learning (LSL), killing 3 birds with a single stone. The main issue that we strived to repeatedly emphasize upon is the disappearance of mangroves by highlighting the fact that the mangrove forest cover in Singapore has dropped from 13% in the 1820s to only 0.5% of total land area today (Ng & Sivasothi, 1999). But this problem is not exclusive to Singapore alone. On a global level, mangroves once covered three-quarters of the coastline of tropical and subtropical countries but today less than 50% of mangroves remain (Singapore Zoological Gardens Docents, 2000).
The backbone of our presentation was also to drive home the importance of mangrove awareness and how such knowledge may be beneficial by putting it in the context of the recent Boxing Day Tsunami. Mangroves could have saved numerous lives and reduced a significant amount of damage by acting as barriers, absorbing some energy of the giant waves. In this case, our embarking on this project would serve as a platform for the application of newly-acquired knowledge in situations free from restriction by boundaries.
In relation to Tsunami-hit areas, the key note speaker of the event, Mr Peter Kenny from the International Baccalaureate Organisation gave a short speech-cum-presentation earlier that morning as part of the opening ceremony of the competition. In his presentation, he shared his experience initiating a number of projects throughout Asia Pacific in relation to the tsunami disaster. We were also introduced to the “schools to schools” project, which was set up in an attempt to assist school communities in affected regions. The project aims to establish long tern cross-cultural links between local and foreign schools and staff alike and lend a hand in providing immediate and direct support.
A major part of his presentation consists of slides with thought-provoking pictures that illustrate the people’s just-barely-tolerable circumstances. There was one photo that was particularly memorable- a picture of a meagre pile of papers on a shelf allocated to a class of 40. Indeed, a picture speaks a thousand words. I doubt that even a well-crafted speech could beat this real-life picture in highlighting the insufficient resources and grossly inadequate conditions of pupils in Tsunami-hit regions that were once devastated by the waves.
Though in the end we only attained a Silver Award, I felt that what was most valuable was not the title at the end of the day, but the opportunity to learn from the presentation of others and be informed of the other efforts put in for the environment, for the single common goal of all those present at the competition. (So yeah, Zhong Ning, don’t take it too hard.) If not for this competition, or should I say, more of an interactive discussion, I would not have realized how many people in Singapore have been harbouring ideas of conserving and protecting Mother Nature’s gift to mankind.
Upon reflection, this competition could have been better prepared for if we hadn’t procrastinated during the June holidays as we overestimated the amount of time we had on hand. As a result, the few days before the competition were chaotic. On a final note, we would like to thank Mr Lim for sacrificing his after-school hours to help us out till the wee hours and not forgetting his humour that kept us awake…
[edit] Ada, I'm SOSOSO proud of you :) [/edit]
Our participation in the oratory competition last Saturday was indeed a unique yet fruitful experience. The 5th Scholastic Environment Fund (SEF) Student Forum and Oratory Competition on the Environment 2005 was jointly organized by SEF and St Andrew’s Junior College in a bid to provide opportunities for the younger generation to think across disciplines and sharpen their verbal skills in the process. The theme for this year is “Green Cities: Plan for the Planet!” and teams were instructed to identify a pertinent environmental issue and after detailed analysis, present their possible solutions in front of a panel of judges.
Our presentation title was “Mangrove Conservation & Reforestation”, as this was closely interwoven with our RS and could be done in accordance with Leadership Service Learning (LSL), killing 3 birds with a single stone. The main issue that we strived to repeatedly emphasize upon is the disappearance of mangroves by highlighting the fact that the mangrove forest cover in Singapore has dropped from 13% in the 1820s to only 0.5% of total land area today (Ng & Sivasothi, 1999). But this problem is not exclusive to Singapore alone. On a global level, mangroves once covered three-quarters of the coastline of tropical and subtropical countries but today less than 50% of mangroves remain (Singapore Zoological Gardens Docents, 2000).
The backbone of our presentation was also to drive home the importance of mangrove awareness and how such knowledge may be beneficial by putting it in the context of the recent Boxing Day Tsunami. Mangroves could have saved numerous lives and reduced a significant amount of damage by acting as barriers, absorbing some energy of the giant waves. In this case, our embarking on this project would serve as a platform for the application of newly-acquired knowledge in situations free from restriction by boundaries.
In relation to Tsunami-hit areas, the key note speaker of the event, Mr Peter Kenny from the International Baccalaureate Organisation gave a short speech-cum-presentation earlier that morning as part of the opening ceremony of the competition. In his presentation, he shared his experience initiating a number of projects throughout Asia Pacific in relation to the tsunami disaster. We were also introduced to the “schools to schools” project, which was set up in an attempt to assist school communities in affected regions. The project aims to establish long tern cross-cultural links between local and foreign schools and staff alike and lend a hand in providing immediate and direct support.
A major part of his presentation consists of slides with thought-provoking pictures that illustrate the people’s just-barely-tolerable circumstances. There was one photo that was particularly memorable- a picture of a meagre pile of papers on a shelf allocated to a class of 40. Indeed, a picture speaks a thousand words. I doubt that even a well-crafted speech could beat this real-life picture in highlighting the insufficient resources and grossly inadequate conditions of pupils in Tsunami-hit regions that were once devastated by the waves.
Though in the end we only attained a Silver Award, I felt that what was most valuable was not the title at the end of the day, but the opportunity to learn from the presentation of others and be informed of the other efforts put in for the environment, for the single common goal of all those present at the competition. (So yeah, Zhong Ning, don’t take it too hard.) If not for this competition, or should I say, more of an interactive discussion, I would not have realized how many people in Singapore have been harbouring ideas of conserving and protecting Mother Nature’s gift to mankind.
Upon reflection, this competition could have been better prepared for if we hadn’t procrastinated during the June holidays as we overestimated the amount of time we had on hand. As a result, the few days before the competition were chaotic. On a final note, we would like to thank Mr Lim for sacrificing his after-school hours to help us out till the wee hours and not forgetting his humour that kept us awake…
[edit] Ada, I'm SOSOSO proud of you :) [/edit]