Experiential Learning with Technology

In the month of July, Oh' Farms hosted a group of young and enthusiastic pupils from Endeavour Primary School. Bring along with their learning tools - ipads, they were here to gain first-hand experience and learn the process of hydroponics cultivation. With the advance of technology, students now can access to knowledge anytime and anywhere at their finger tips. You see, these students paid full attention to the information they could retrieve on the ipads.Entering into the 21st century, equipping our students with new technology will enhance their learning not only in the classrooms but also outdoors.When our educational tour guide was bringing them round the farm, introducing them to the different departments and explaining how the hydroponics works, most students might forget what they heard and saw pretty quickly. But with the help of ipads, the could jot down notes quickly, took photos or videos and recorded what the tour guide explained - learning is so much fun and meaningful if students are fully engaged through their involvement in the learning process.

Learning should not be restricted only to within the classrooms. Videos or photos that they took during the tour will help these students to refresh and reflect their memory and their learning journey.

Lastly, with proper use of technology we are contributing to the 'Go Green' or 'Saving Gaia' projects also - indeed, printed materials are not necessary as students could read and complete their work on their ipads.

However, technology is never a substitute for an inspiring teacher. Time and effort are absolutely necessary and required for teachers to interact and nurture a student - yes, the roles of a teacher can never be obliterated in order to bring about a holistic education for our next generation.

Thumbs up for Endeavour Primary School in adopting technology to aid or enhance students' learning - hope more schools would come to the farm and let students experience and witness what hydroponics farming is all about.

The Butterflies in Our Parks and Gardens

The Singapore Garden Festival 2012 was held from 7th July to 15th July. This year, Oh' Farms together with Mr Syaiful Hakim from Nparks were invited to speak on the topic, " The Butterflies Around Our Parks" on the 12th and 14th July '12. Both of us were excited as this had given us an opportunity to introduce some of the nature's flying jewels found in our parks to the visitors. Hopefully, a better understanding of this unique group of insects would stimulate more interest in appreciating and conserving them.

Ai Ling, from Oh' Farms explained the different stages of the life cycle of a butterfly and why butterflies were important in our environment.
Syaiful, on the other hand, covered a wider range of topics - from the basics of creating a butterfly garden to some species of butterfly that are facing extinction in our island. After the talk, many stayed to look at the exhibits. Abby, one of the helpers who handled the exhibits, explained in details the life cycle of a butterfly has to go through.One of the visitors brought a photo of a butterfly for Abby to identify.Visitors spotting a few caterpillars on the plant which were very well camouflaged.Mother and daughter were looking at the different instars of the lime caterpillars.Abby was busy answering many queries posted by the curious visitors. From the responses of the audience, it clearly showed that many people had misconceptions about butterflies and caterpillars. In order to encourage more people to appreciate and know more about butterflies, educating the public with the correct facts about butterflies is a way to go.

A Visit from Across the Straits

On 7th May 2012, the Oh's Farm welcomed a group of teachers-to-be from our friendly neighbourhood, Malaysia. This group of guests came from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai Johor. With a cohort of 97 prospective teachers , the group embarked on a learning journey on soilless culture.

The group was introduced to 3 types of hydroponic systems namely the NFT system, the Drip Irrigation and also the DRF system.

The NFT system (The Nutrient Film Technique Hydroponic system) was used to grow some Japanese cucumbers, roselle, cherry tomatoes, lavender and a few species of mint.

The system that the Farm adopts for the production of leafy vegetables is the DRF system - The Dynamic Root Floating Hydroponic System. These curious pre-service teachers all took a look at the hot and humid germination room - the seeds in the sponges were left there 2 to 3 days for germination.

The newly germinated seeds are transferred to the nurseries where they will continue to grow in a special nursery for another 7 to 10 days. Some sunlight and light nutrient solution are needed for the young seedlings to develop roots and true leaves.

Once the seedlings are ready for transplanting, it will be sent to the Production Greenhouses.

Only healthy seedlings will be selected and transplanted into the culture panels.

The transplanting process is clean and hassle free.

After transplanting, the white netting is lowered to keep the pest out. This way, the vegetables are produced without using pesticide.A group photo for remembrance!

To sum up the tour, a sharing session on how to use recycling materials to set up your own hydroponics is introduced.

Tony, our in-house guide, ends the session with a quick quiz on the tour where some tokens were given for attentive visitors.

It was a pleasant experience to have a foreign tertiary institution visiting the farm as the Farm hardly receives visitors from the local universities. Besides learning in classrooms, experiential learning derived from visiting industries or farms should add value to any students' education journey!

Hanging Gardens @ Admiralty Primary School

Recycling is one of the widely encouraged practices for green movement in many schools. One good example is shown by Admiralty Primary School which makes use water bottles as a holder for putting potted plants. Not only will this beautify the wall but also cut down the carbon footprint in the school.

Many students helped in the process of collecting waste water bottles.

Members of The Environmental Club created some holes at the base of the water bottles to drain out excess water in the bottles. This will make sure that all these bottles will not become a breeding ground for mosquitoes.Here comes the first step in getting the bottles up on the wall. Fishing lines were used to attach to the hooks on the wall, leaving sufficient length to tie the water bottles up the wall.

The teacher in charge, Ms Faith Tay, also worked hand in hand with the students in attaching the fishing lines to the water bottles.

Next, they estimated the distance between the first bottle and the hook and then tied a knot to the water bottle's neck.If hands were not sufficient to tie the bottles, you could use your legs as well - what a creative idea ! Pull tight to secure the bottle to the fishing line. Repeat the process for the next bottle until you have the required number of bottles hanging on the line.

Using a cable tie, wrap it round the base of the bottle together with the fishing line. This should ensure the bottle standing in the upright position.Put in a potted plant of your choice. If the area is shady, put in a shade-loving plant like fern or money plant. If the area has full sunlight throughout the day, then a sun-loving plant like portulaca grandiflora is suitable. However, the media used for planting the potted plant should have a 50-50 mixture of coco-peat and soil.Trim off excess fishing lines or cable ties to improve the aesthetic look.The process is repeated until the whole wall is covered with all sort of bottles.Students working meticulously and enthusiastically ........
The last job is watering the plants. After watering, a final inspection is necessary. This is to ensure that there is no water retention in any of the water bottles.Through this project, the students not only learned that unwanted things can be recycled into something beautiful. These young pupils have shown that teamwork is the best way to get things done in the shortest possible time.Let us take a group picture to remember days of hard work done and teamwork enabled us to complete the tasks with great satisfaction.

This is just an example of recycling unwanted items. Hopefully this activity could trigger the imagination of many of the young minds to embark on carrying out another recycling-reducing and reusing of wastes project.