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On 05 September 2007, what was normally a quiet and serene Republic Polytechnic campus during school holidays became an exciting, noise-filled buzzing ground from as early as 8 a.m. The arrivals of secondary school students and RP students heralded the start of Eureka.07, a science symposium organized by SAS. Running for the 4th successive year, RP was proud, once again, to have the opportunity of organising this informative and interesting event at TRCC Studio.
The Eureka symposium is held annually in conjunction with the national Science month and is open to all students from secondary schools and tertiary institutions. Every year, a theme is commissioned to focus discussion, presentations and exchange of knowledge on current environmental concerns, as well as the most advanced technology and research breakthroughs to deal with today’s environment and its conservation issues at hand. This year, the theme for Eureka.07 was “Managing Our Fragile Earth”. Besides reflecting the present-day situations facing our Earth, the theme was also suitably aligned with RP’s environmentally-friendly stance. The RP campus in Woodlands was awarded the Building and Construction Authority’s Green Mark Platinum Award in 2006, while as recently as June this year, RP students were upholding this eco-friendly message through their active involvement with the Project Minus3Million Plastic Bags – a promotional pledge that attempted to cut down people’s dependence on plastic bags and instead, to accustom themselves with reusable bags. It was indeed apt for the Eureka.07 to be held at the RP campus as it was a befitting and conducive environment for the secondary school students to immerse themselves and participate in the educational topics for the day.
Dr. Amy Khor, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources and Mayor, South West CDC was the Guest-of-Honor for the event. After Professor Low Teck Seng, Principal for RP, gave his opening speech, Dr. Khor elaborated on this year’s theme by delivering her keynote speech. By this stage, the interests of the attendees had been well and truly piqued and they were eagerly looking forward to the presentations and workshops in store for the rest of the day.
What followed next were a series of short presentations by distinguished speakers with expertise from an array of industries and organizations. Their main ideas centred on science’s part in conserving and protecting the earth and its natural resources, areas of recent growing concern and ideas for the future in managing our fragile earth. The speakers included Mr. Saud Siddique, Group Executive Vice President, Global Infrastructure & CEO of Hyflux Capital, as well as Professor Wang Jing-Yuan, Director of Environmental Engineering Research Centre (EERC) at Nanyang Technological University.
Besides delivering their individual speeches, a panel discussion with Assistant Professor Shawn Lum (Deputy President & Chair, Plant Group, Nature Society, Singapore), Mr. Ong Gin Keat (General Manager, ecoWise Solutions Pte Ltd), Dr. Chua Hwee Chuan (Program Chair, Environmental Science, School of Applied Science), moderated by Dr. Wong Luh Chern (Assistant Director, Capability Development, School of Applied Science) was also held. The panel discussion complemented the previous presentations and threw up interesting thoughts and questions to whet the students’ appetites in finding out more about saving our earth and what responsibilities they could undertake in their efforts.
After a quick lunch break at the Agora where a series of exhibits were put up to showcase the Building and Construction Authority’s (BCA) environmental sustainability efforts, the students spent the rest of the afternoon absorbed in a series of environmental workshops on wastewater management and bio-composting conducted in RP labs. The movie, “An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore, was also screened - a film with a message that warns of the pending and very real dangers of global warming heading our way.
What did the secondary students think of Eureka.07? Judging by their probing questions and excited chatter throughout the day, it appears that the event was a resounding success with its attendees. As the students made their way home clutching their goodie bags as souvenirs, the organizers from the School of Applied Science certainly hoped that everyone took home an all-important message – that each and every one of them is responsible for the welfare of our Earth and its precious remaining resources, that we all need to preserve our Earth’s environment as carefully as possible in order to ensure our future generations have a comfortable and pleasant world to live in for as long as possible, and last but not least, that scientific research should be continually channeled into developing conservation methods and technology.
Registration for Eureka 08 Symposium
For more information about our past Eureka symposiums, please log on to
http://www.rp.sg/eureka . Registration for Eureka 08 will be open from March 2008 onwards.
Do register early as vacancies are limited.
For registration and more information, please visit
www.rp.sg/eureka or contact Ms Lisa Kavita Rajah (Organiser for Eureka.08) at lisa_kavita_rajah@rp.sg .
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