Lim, Shirley S. L.

An oil spill occurred in the Straits of Singapore (one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes) on 25 May 2010. Pre- and post-oil spill population parameters (i.e., abundances, densities, burrow diameters, location of burrows with respect to shore height and size-distribution gradient) of the ghost crab Ocypode ceratophthalmus on two adjacent beaches at East Coast Park, Singapore, were compared to study the extent of impact and subsequent recovery rate. The ghost crab population, which was decimated after the oil spill, rebounded within three months to densities close to those that were observed prior to the oil spill. The lower boundary of the recolonised population in September 2010 and January 2011 shifted upshore by about 0.4 m from that documented in September 2006. The zone that was recolonised was between 2.6 m and 2.8 m above Chart Datum in January 2011, directly above the upper limit of the region contacted by the spilled oil, indicating that the crabs avoided settling in sediments that contained oil residues. No distinct size distribution gradient on the shore was observed in the pre- and postspill populations. This study confirms that the abundance and distribution of O. ceratophthalmus provide reliable, sensitive and effective indications of the conditions of beach habitats.

Biological knowledge for citizenship rests at the nexus of two important concepts -scientific literacy and citizenship education. Scientific literacy, the ability to make sense of and hence decisions related to scientific issues, operates under the broad construct of citizenship. Citizenship education is defined by UNESCO as "educating children, from early childhood, to become clear-thinking and enlightened citizens who participate in decisions concerning society". As society moves further into the 21st century, many of the challenges facing 'sustainable societies' require scientifically literate citizens to participate at multiple societal levels. At the international level, many of the UN Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the world community have a scientific grounding in biology. This suggests that global citizenship education must take cognizance of biological knowledge. Through the theoretical lens of scientific literacy, pressing biological issues of food security, nutrition, biodiversity decline, and climate change are discussed in the chapter, making explicit the importance of biological knowledge for responsible global citizenship. These issues affect citizens at the community and individual levels through decisions linked to matters like food waste, diet, body mass index, and choice of food. Various learning approaches have been used to incorporate these matters into science curricula, such as through real-world learning.

In this paper, we characterize the inquiry practices of four elementary school teachers by means of a pedagogical framework. Our study surfaced core components of inquiry found in theoretically-driven models as well as practices that were regarded as integral to the success of day-to-day science teaching in Singapore. This approach towards describing actual science inquiry practices - a surprisingly neglected area - uncovered nuances in teacher instructions that can impact inquiry-based lessons as well as contribute to a practice-oriented perspective of science teaching. In particular, we found that these teachers attached importance to (a) preparing students for investigations, both cognitively and procedurally; (b) iterating pedagogical components where helping students understand and construct concepts did not follow a planned linear path but involved continuous monitoring for learning; and (c) synthesizing concepts in a consolidation phase. Our findings underscore the dialectical relationship between practice-oriented knowledge and theoretical conceptions of teaching/learning thereby helping educators better appreciate how teachers adapt inquiry science for different contexts.