ThinkQuest : Library - About this site

Over 8,000 websites created by students around the world who have participated in a ThinkQuest Competition.

Greenology In Action

2009
Narrative Question: How do we take better care of our world and its resources? To address this issue, our team decides to come up with a study on the various problems the earth is currently facing, from climate change to pollution, and lack of sustainable resources for the future. We provide detailed ‘cause, effect and measures’ studies to give an all rounded view of the issues. However, we included another section that answers the question with a new and creative approach. Knowing that many countries these days are starting eco-friendly buildings, organizing green events and started green policies, we decide to answer the question by showing the current and future plans of the actions of these countries, doing comparisons and coming up with the best ways to solving a problem. We added a section to guide an individual who also wants to play his part in fighting climate change. Every small action counts in helping the world fight climate change. The more we have the fear that it is irreversible, the more we would not want to care about it, and therefore bringing out the worst possible circumstances. Raising awareness would encourage more people to put in effort in helping planet earth. An interactive section would be included too, comprising video interviews and quizzes to test one’s knowledge on our topic. Resources required would be rather diverse. In order to have actual insights on what a country does, we have to live in the country itself. And that is what we successfully achieved, by having members working and getting information from Beijing, Tianjin, Indonesia and Singapore. Surveys, interviews and case studies could all be conducted at the various locations. Pictures were also easily obtained as we could directly use the pictures taken by ourselves. This project targets anyone who is willing to find out more about fighting climate change and how these actual steps are taken in the real world. People organizing events for their school / community could gain inspiration from our sources, and probably add a green twist to their event organization. Due to the relevance of climate change, adding a green twist to anything would certainly gain approval and probably more support from the general public. Finally, we aim to raise awareness of the climate change issue, and hopefully after going through our site, readers would actually understand the importance and severity of the situation and therefore want to play their part as well. Our site also encompasses other facets of environmental conservation such as reaching a fine balance between technological advancement and consideration for the environment. We will also be including in our website, an evaluation of the policies various countries have adopted, as well as the recent Beijing Olympics, and perhaps a discussion with regards to the upcoming London Olympics in the year 2012. Our primary objective would be to augment the overall awareness level of the global audience to perhaps accentuate the crucial need for environmental conservation.

Visit Site

Team

LeonardHwa Chong Institution, Singapore

LesterHwa Chong Institution, Singapore

Kwang YuHwa Chong Institution, Singapore

Jian YangHwa Chong Institution, Singapore

NicholasHwa Chong Institution, Singapore

FilzaBinus School, Jakarta, Indonesia

Age Range

19 & under

Coaches

Budi SutiantoBinus School, Jakarta, Indonesia

Galvin SngHwa Chong Institution, Singapore

Category

Science & Technology > Life Science > Ecology

Audience

All ages

Language

English

Team Collaboration

We believed in division of labour and felt that it was very effective in achieving the information that we needed for our website. Each one of us researched a different aspect of climate change, which helped to produce a more detailed research in the different sections of the website, instead of only one specializing in research. We value quality and not quantity, and therefore, require the information that we obtain to be researched extensively. We also met up with each other often to suggest any new ideas and also update on the current status of our group.

Besides that, we also have different individual strengths, which we used to our advantage for refining gthe end product.

Jian Yang is an excellent photographer. This helped us to acquire many photos for the different sections in our website. Furthermore, as a leader, he is one who inspired us to complete our research and submit our work done on time. He motivated us to put our best effort during the project duration so that our hard work can pay off.

Kwang Yu is exceptionally good in Photoshop. His I.T. skills enabled us to come up with creative banners for our website to enhance the overall visual impression. Design plays a very important role in keeping the viewer of the website interested in reading on, as it is not only attractive but more pleasing to the eye.

Nicholas is good at information sourcing and helps to research for more detailed information regarding the different aspects of climate change. In addition, he also motivates us to complete our work on time by setting an example to us. All these have helped us to both obtain valuable information on climate change and also manage our time better.

Lester does the public relations and networking for the group. He successfully obtained contacts for interviews relevant to our topic, giving us a wider perspective of it.

Leonard has exceptional writing skills and provided help in drafting out many of our introductions for the different sections in our website. The introductions have the ability to captivate the readers attention and enhance the website’s overall quality.

Filzaa has experience in macromedia flash and designed the flash game for the interactive portion of the website.

Therefore, We feel that not only has our individual strengths enabled us to come up with this end product, the motivation to carry on, the division of labour, the frequent meetings and good teamwork have also aided us in completing the project.

Team Diversity

Our team is a real diverse one. Not only coming from different culture backgrounds but also stationed in various part of the globe, synchronizing and collaborating smoothly proved to be a big challenge. Filzaa who is an Indonesian, worked from her hometown, Jakarta, throughout the project duration. She gave us insights on some green actions taken by her school and Indonesia’s government.

The rest of the team, though Singaporeans, were stationed in different locations too. 4 of the members, Jian Yang, Leonard and Nicholas, were in Singapore, interviewing various persons about our country’s actions, and doing actual case studies on different events and projects conducted here.

The other 2 members, Kwang Yu and Lester, were stationed 4200 km away in Beijing. They also did interviews and surveys with the locals on the cleanup before the Olympics, and went on to test the level of pollution in a lake beside the Olympic venue.

Despite the initial problems we faced, this in fact proved to be an advantage for us. Our case study pictures and content could all be created at any time, as we were physically present in all 3 locations. This enhanced the originality of our work and lessened the need for internet and book sourcing.

Besides our different locations, we also were very different in our backgrounds. All of us play different sports and have different hobbies, but this exposed us to a greater variety of situations and information as well. We however, had one common goal. It is to understand better about climate change and see what countries and individuals can do to help it.

As for our sources, we did interviews and surveys with both Singaporeans and Beijingers, besides the regular research and content sourcing. This proved to provide us with a rather wide range of sources, and also included public opinion as well. As for the interviews, we talked to people from all walks of life, from educationalists experienced in the topic, to the taxi driver on the streets.

Furthermore, our content sources vary from the regular internet, to books, magazines, our local newspapers and even the posters we see around us every day. Each of them have a different objective in mind, giving us a unique blend of content.