Our Thinkquest team consists of

We are currently studying in Raffles Institution, a secondary school in Singapore. Every year, students in our school are tasked with a research project work and we are free to research on topics of our own interests. Hence this year we have decided to adopt ThinkQuest and carry out research on the topic of the haze situation that happens in South-East Asian countries every year during the September to October period.

You may contact us at this email: hazefighters@yahoo.com.sg

To start up our research journey, we first brainstormed for the topic that we want to research about, and the objectives. We are to develop an educational website that aims to provide a holistic view of the annual haze situation and suggest ways to protect our health and the environment, prevent the haze and prepare for the future. With clear objectives in our mind, we sorted tasks for everyone.

Before we conducted interviews and surveys, we needed to have a deep understanding of the haze situation, including the history, causes, impacts of the haze and other minor details. We gathered our data from different sources: print (from the library) and non-print sources (from the web). We took every effort and care to ensure that the data we produced was not plagiarized.

The websites that gave us insight into the haze situations include:
1. National Environment Agency of Singapore
2. Haze FAQ
3. Singapore Institute of International Affairs

We came into contact with Ms Tay Lee San, Senior Scientific Officer, Pollution Control Department, and The National Environment Agency when we wanted to obtain the PSI Readings of 2006 in Singapore. She was friendly and approachable, and did not hesitate to help us clear our doubts, whenever the need arose.

When we had some queries and could not find the information from sources, we resorted to using Yahoo! Answers, which proved to be quite useful.

We planned out the questions for the survey. We ensured that these questions could fill any gaps of knowledge from our data generation. Following that, we generated and posted our survey through an online resource called AsknLearn. We publicized our survey through a few websites and forums. For example, Yahoo! Answers. Of course, we had to determine our target group and our aims of the survey first.

As for the interview, we needed to seek professional views so as to further substantiate our data presented. Thus, we sourced for suitable institutions and organizations and arranged to have face-to-face interviews/telephone interviews. The questions which we planned to ask were mostly opinions which we wanted to hear from the experts who were located in Singapore. In total, we conducted 3 interviews.

Interview 1 - 24 January 2007
Mr Desmond Lee Kok Onn
Assistant Director
International Relations Department
Policy & Planning Division
The National Environment Agency

We found Mr Desmond Lee through the National Environment Agency's website and made an appointment soon after. We needed his opinions since he was from the government sector and we wanted to find out more or less what the Singapore government has been doing about the haze. From our interview with him, we learnt about the term Transboundary Pollution. We also found out about the different organizations (e.g. ASEAN Specialized Meteorological Centre) formed to counter the haze problem.

Interview 2 - 30 March 2007
Dr Chang Chew-Hung
Assistant Professor
Humanities and Social Studies Education Academic Group
National Institute of Education
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

We found Dr Chang through the Nanyang Technological University website where we requested to have an interview with one of the professors. So, Dr Chang was chosen to help us with our interview.

During our 10 minute telephone interview with Dr Chang, we found out that environmental impacts of haze were reduction in visibility and air quality. We found out that alternative methods to clear land would depend on the different agricultural sectors. The alternative methods would range from a small scale subsistence level to a large scale commercial plantation. We also gained insight as to the fact that the prediction of the haze getting worse this year might be inaccurate since there were other factors involved.

Interview 3 - 30 March 2007
Dr Chris Huang Chia Yu
MBBS (Melbourne)
DIP of Dermatology (UK) , Singapore

Through our face-to-face interview with him, we learned more about the impacts of haze on the human body and health. He also cleared our doubts on some of the data which we gathered. Through this interview, we had gained a much better insight into the impacts of the haze and what could be done to protect ourselves from haze such as installing air filters in our houses.

In the course of this project, all of us took away much from it. We learnt the importance of teamwork and time management. Values such as responsibility, sense of urgency, punctuality and patience were gained along the way.

At the beginning, we were all very excited and enthusiastic over this project and could not wait to get started. Owing to examinations, we could only begin work in October 2006. By then, some problems arose. One of them was that we were unable to work cohesively when we realized that we were all rather headstrong and could not really acknowledge one person’s leadership role. All of us tried to lead others. This became quite a big problem causing us being reluctant to share our files and information with each other. On hindsight, it seems so laughable that we almost fell out over this. The unhappiness soon dissipated and we were back as a team once again after some rather personal emails and talks.

Another obstacle we encountered was the starting of the school term. During December, not much work was done and with all of us being committed to our activities like camps and extra-curriculum activities. We found that our schedule was too packed to even mention ThinkQuest and “meetings” were reduced to status reports during break and lunch. This almost became our downfall as we realized that we just could not take time off to have a good meeting and consolidation of information. Due to this, information was insufficient and the deadline started drawing closer and closer. This gave rise to us staying back for long periods of time in school to finish up our stuff. Also, with the stress and pressure of academic projects and examinations, we were really on a tight schedule.

The third problem we encountered was our academics. Due to the time-consuming nature of this project, we were sandwiched between our grades and the project. Some of our grades suffered and homework ended up being done between lessons or before school. This was where time management came in and where we actually begin to understand its importance.

Overall, the process and experience we gained in this project were unforgettable and really meaningful. Working as a team let us further understand each other and we share many laughter along the way. The project also enabled us to interact more with our teacher mentor and this really bridged the teacher-student gap. Although we worked hard and we were under tremendous stress, we had absolutely no regret in choosing this project. Our site contains the blood, sweat and tears of our research and efforts and we are extremely proud of it. This is not just a project to us; this became an integral part of our lives, an unforgettable archive of memories.

The project also taught us to look at a problem from a different perspective. When we started researching on the cause of the haze, we tended to blame the Indonesian farmers for setting the forest fires and causing the haze and inconveniences to the countries affected by the haze. However, as we progressed, we began to empathize with these farmers and their poor living conditions. We were even planning on going down to Indonesia to interact with the farmers to understand their needs and offer them help. We realised that alternative methods to clear the land for crop-planting is crucial to solve the haze problem. We wish that this website does not only provide information on the haze problem, but also inspire others to do something for these Indonesian farmers and begin to change their attitude towards them.