RSI students talk to prospective students

It’s Open House here at RI(JC)! The school is flooded with prospective students and parents and the college is abuzz with festivities.

Big thanks to all the students who helped out!

Saturday 15 Jan 2010 at NTU

11.00am to 11.30am – Presentation on Global Deal on Climate Change: What it Means for Singapore 11.30am to 12.00pm – Question and Answer 12.00pm to 1.00pm – Discussion with Prof Peter Ng, Director, TMSI and RMBR, NUS 1.00pm to 2.00pm - Break 2.00pm to 2.10pm – Introduction to Youth Coalition for Sustainable Development, Singapore 2.10pm to 2.30pm – Presentation on Proposed Need for Convergence and Synchronization of Tertiary Institutions’ Environmental Programmes by NUS Community Service Club 2.30pm to 3.00pm – Breakout discussion

Contact: Mr Ngan Wei Yeong [weiyeong.ngan@ri.edu.sg]

OpenLab recently acquired quite a variety of critters which have made the lab a lot more lively! Do drop by to pay them a visit sometime.

Marine tank

The marine tank contains a few representatives of the plants and animals that can be found in coral reefs of Singapore. These include hard corals, soft corals, seagrasses, marine algae, gastropods, bivalves, nudibranchs (yes, nudibranchs!) and more! Updates coming soon.

Marine Tank

Freshwater tank

The stars of the freshwater tank are the pair of bichirs. Bichirs are elongated fishes with many dorsal finlets and fleshy pectoral fins. Have no idea what I’m talking about? Come over and see them for yourself!

Freshwater tank - can you spot the bichir?

African clawed toads

We have a pair of African clawed toads kindly donated by Mr Eddie Koh from the KS department. The toads are aquatic and swim to the surface for air, although, amphibians have very thin skin through which they can breathe. They eat mainly live prey such as insects and small fish. They can grow up to 12cm long!

One of the toads

Both the clawed toads and bichirs are non-native to Singapore. Never release non-native animals into our local water bodies as they have the potential to wreak havoc on the natural ecosystem.

Hermit crabs

Also donated by Mr Eddie Koh, we have a pair of land hermit crabs living in natural-looking sandy tank in the OpenLab. There were originally three but one died when it tried to moult. Moulting is necessary for crustaceans to grow and it is a very stressful and resource-intensive period for them. We feed them dry tubifex worms and fruits. If you would like to feed them you can bring small pieces of pears or apples (leftover from lunch maybe?).

You can't really see them because they are more nocturnal in their activity

Look what we brought back from the International Science Education Conference 2009!

Fossils from Ithaca, New York

Fossils! These are from Ithaca, New York and were kindly given by Prof. Barbara Crawford from Cornell University. They were formed during the Devonian period which is about 400 million years ago. If you look closely, you can see the fossils of extinct creatures like trilobites.

This means she can do more RSI projects… Woots! The lab waits in anticipation for a treat…!

Closing date for the selection process will be 25th June.  Please submit on time.

Thanks, Dr Loo

The RSI was invited by CPDD to share some of our strategies and lessons learnt to a group of enthusiastic teachers from various schools. It was a fun session and we enjoyed ourselves. Thanks to MOE and A*Star for organising this talk.

We completely forgot to take photos even though we had a camera with us cos we were very engrossed in the whole after-lunch session.

Talk outline

Feedback form!

Hello new website

RSI has changed the look of the website so now the mainpage has a more modern look and all activities can be seen at a glance! Happy browsing!

yucky old website

pretty new website

Conservation talks
Conservation walks
Conservation RAWKS!

Starting in Week 9 (term 2), RSI is organising a series of conservation talks! Don’t miss out. Here is the schedule

“Singapore’s Coral Reefs – What do we have and how they can be conserved”

Ms Karenne Tun – Marine Biology Laboratory, National University of Singapore

26th May 3:30pm LT3

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“The role of management in conservation of our green spaces”

Mr Benjamin Lee – Asst. Dir. Nature Parks, NParks Singapore and senior conservation officer at the central nature reserve

28th May 3:30pm LT5

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“What happened at Chek Jawa – the dissection of conservation successes in Singapore”

Mr N Sivasothi – author and co-editor of “A Guide to the Mangroves of Singapore”, editor of Habitatnews and coordinator of the Raffles Museum Toddycats volunteer cohort

18th May 3:30pm LT4

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“Global Marine Initiatives”

Ms Katherine Short – WWF International is coming to RI(JC) to introduce us to the global marine crisis situation and what WWF is doing.

19th May 3:30pm LT3

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