Chang, Chew Hung

The concept of “waterscapes” is examined, with a focus on applications in secondary schools and the pedagogy for undergraduate geography students. The waterscape emphasis on external flows of capital, political relations, and policy that interact with the physical watershed, as well as the hydrosocial cycle, are particularly well suited to support teacher pedagogical content knowledge because of the flexibility in interpreting and applying concepts using what we have termed “the shallow sustainability approach”. Employing case studies from the Singapore geography curriculum, we explore new pathways for the traditional interpretation of waterscapes that include linking mathematical modelling of hydrologic systems with rich local narratives.

The urban heat island phenomenon was examined at three spatial scales in this study. At the island-wide scale, the existence of the nocturnal heat island phenomenon at 2200 hrs for various "seasons" of the year in Singapore was confirmed. The study was undertaken at 2200 hrs to allow for comparison with an earlier study in 1981. The intensity of the phenomenon varies both spatially and temporary. The nocturnal phenomenon has changed since it was last studied in 1981. Secondary heat islands are now present over some sub-urban areas which were previously rural. Previous studies of Singapore's nocturnal heat island have recognised and described the phenomenon substantially but have failed to establish statistical relationship between factors and the phenomenon.

This study established some statistical correlation between some factors (such as urban canyon geometry and size of estate) and the nocturnal heat island phenomenon through empirical data examined at local scales. Urban canyon geometry, in terms of height-to-width ratios, and the physical size of the housing estates have positive correlations but the areal extent of waterbodies has negative correlations with heat island intensities. The role of canyon geometry in the processes involved in the genesis of the phenomenon was further examined at a micro-scale, where three canyons were studied for spatial and temporal variation in ambient temperatures, insolation and wind speed. Results show that canyons with higher height-to-width ratios tend to have weaker winds at the canyon floor and large spatial difference in ambient air temperatures between canyon floor and canyon top. Using the statistical results, a model to predict 2200 hrs heat island intensities based on urban canyon geometry, size of estate and areal extent of waterbodies was proposed. This model gives an overall p-value of 0.0002 with urban canyon geometry being the most statistically significant of the three parameters included in the model.

How school geography should be taught has been a longstanding issue for geography educators. In some countries, state or national level curriculum predicates how the subject should be taught in schools. This paper examines these questions in relation to existing frameworks of conceptualizing school geography, such as the International Charter on Geographical Education. School geography in Singapore has evolved from regional geography to thematic geography to systematic geography. A review of the curriculum in 2007 resulted in a distinct form of school geography unprecedented in Singapore’s education history. Today, school geography in Singapore is learnt conceptually with national level assessment designed to that end. To what extent is this evolution in curriculum design in step with changes in our world? In response to the changes in school geography, pre-service and in-service teacher training has also responded by focusing on conceptual learning and inquiry. This paper will explore the state of school geography curricula in Singapore today, and the curriculum of teacher training, with the intent to critically discuss the state of geography education in Singapore. Although geography has remained a disciplinary subject whose place has yet been disputed, the big question of why study geography in the first place needs to be answered to ensure its continued survival. In particular, school geography will be examined for its relevance to a fast changing world. This critique ends by offering a reason to how geography plays an important role in education for sustainable development, and its relevance to Singaporeans or even any citizen of the world.

This paper describes a baseline empirical study of Singapore secondary students' understanding of climate change . It reports that despite evidence of significant awareness on the topic , what learner's think they know does not match up with what they really know. Like other students around the world, their understanding of the phenomenon is not deep enough for accurate definition, explanation and linking of critical concepts together coherently and correctly. The paper critically examines how the introduction of a new national syllabus in geography in Singapore at grade 9level considers current developments in scientific discourse and affords the opportunity to help students develop values , knowledge, and skills to engage the climate change topic. The study argues for geographic education to be responsive in addressing gaps identified through updating the curriculum with current scientific discourse and by providing skills for students to engage a growing volume of information on climate change from various media.

Information Technology is commonly referred to by its acronym IT. But just what does IT encompass and what are the "technologies" of IT that are useful for learning? How will IT enrich a lesson and enable learning? In particular, the question of how different the advent of new ITs such as the World Wide Web (WWW) is from existing ITs such as the video or TV will be examined. Since learning arises from a constructive process of reflection on the material provided and interaction with it, the mere use of IT in lessons may not be a sufficient condition for learning to occur. It may not even be a necessary condition for learning to occur. Furthermore, IT refers to an extremely varied spectrum of "technologies" ranging from plain electronic manifestation of printed material to self-contained, highly interactive, communication-enabled and multi-mediated materials. There exists a problem on the choice of IT for learning. Examples will be drawn from the comparative study of two University Geography courses, one pre-service and one in-service, on the infusion of interactive online web-based courses to enable learning.

This presentation provides a brief overview on some key concepts in determining the outcomes of climate change education including the knowledge domains on the science, impacts and management of climate change, as well as taking into consideration the cognitive domains of outcomes such as factual recall, deep understanding, skill in analyzing climate change information, for example. The presentation will also discuss the concepts of awareness, knowledge, attitude and action in developing curriculum for learning about climate change. The ultimate aim of education is not just to “inform people, but to change them” (UNESCO, 1997). It is based on this philosophy that CCE should transform learners from knowing and doing something about climate change to being a global citizen ready to engage the issues of climate change.

This paper describes G-Portal, a geospatial digital library of geographical assets, providing an interactive platform to engage students in active manipulation and analysis of information resources and collaborative learning activities. Using a G-Portal application in which students conducted a field study of an environmental problem of beach erosion and sea level rise, we describe a pilot study to evaluate usefulness and usability issues to support the learning of geographical concepts, and in turn teaching.

Digital libraries have been rather successful in supporting learning activities by providing learners with access to information and knowledge. However, this level of support is passive to learners and interactive and collaborative learning cannot be easily achieved. In this paper, we study how digital libraries could be extended to serve a more active role in collaborative learning activities. We focus on developing new services to support a common type of learning activity, field study, in a geospatial context. We propose the concept of personal project space that allows individuals to work in their personalized environment with a mix of private and public data and at the same time to share part of the data with team members. To support the portability of the resources in our digital library, the selected resources can be exported in an organized manner.

The personalized project space is an important feature in G-Portal that supports individual and group learning activities. Within such a space, its owner can create, delete, and organize metadata referencing learning objects on the Web. Browsing and querying are among the functions provided to access the metadata. In addition, new schemas can be added to accommodate metadata of diverse attribute sets. Users can also easily share metadata across different projects using a “copy-and-paste” approach. Finally, a viewer to support offline viewing of personalized project content is also provided.