i am very happy to share the following projects from my students will be shared during the Redesigning Pedagogy conference 2022 :-)
Using computer vision and machine learning with a view to building children's vocabulary
Kaushal Rajesh, Alastair Pek, and myself
30th May 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm, Virtual Room 1.1
This paper describes an independent research project carried out by a pair of junior college students under the mentorship of a Research Scientist at the National Institute of Education. Our project aimed to design a working device to aid kindergarten children in learning about common household equipment such as tables, chairs, and so on. We hoped that this device would help to solve the problem of kindergarten children not being able to learn during the Covid-19 pandemic due to the closure of kindergartens. We trained an Object Detection model and ran it on a Raspberry Pi with screen, speakers and camera connected to it. We took photos of different household equipment and labelled them using software in order to train these images for our Object Detection model. We made use of the Google Open Images and COCO image datasets to sift out the related images of the objects we wanted to train in the model. Overall, the use of the software such as TensorFlow helped us with the training of the different types of objects for the model and the use of Text-to-Speech software allowed us to incorporate the use of sound to project the pronunciation of the objects. Eventually, there are many more aspects we could explore with our prototype. We could make it so that it can say out the object names in different languages to help teach Mother Tongue to kindergarten children.
Learning dynamics in physics with Lego Mindstorms robots
myself, and Shao Wei Koh
30th May 3:45 pm to 5:15 pm, Virtual Room 2.15
In the Singapore-Cambridge General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level (SCGCE O-Level) Science and Physics syllabus, Dynamics is a required topic to be read by students. In a bid to pique students' interest on this topic, we have developed an activity involving Lego Mindstorms® to introduce the topic in a more hands-on and novel way. Students will be able to witness for themselves the effects of forces (provided by the Lego Mindstroms®) on objects. Palm-sized moveable robots built and coded with Lego Mindstorms® exert forces on an everyday object such as a tissue box. We conducted experiments to determine the relationship between the percentage-power and the force exerted by each robot. A pair of such robots were used in push and pull experiments on the tissue box. Depending on the students' familiarity with Dynamics, they can be tasked to code the robots and / or predict the observable effects on the tissue box as the pair of robots act on the latter. This activity is work-in-progress and is planned to be conducted with students from a local secondary school during the first half of 2022. Data gathered will be analysed to assess the effectiveness of the activity in inciting students' interests in the topic of Dynamics.
Ventilation rates in classrooms as an example of authentic inquiry in STEM
Xinyue Wu, Yuling Dong, myself, and Boon Hian Tan
31st May 2:15 pm to 3:45 pm, Virtual Room 4.15
Ventilation has always been closely linked to thermal comfort, which affects productivity of building occupants. In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, heightened attention has been brought to the ventilation of classrooms, an important factor in evaluating the risk of school-based transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. This study investigates the ventilation rates of different types of classrooms in a school, located in the Bukit Timah area of Singapore. Using an Arduino sensor with a carbon dioxide sensor and the model of carbon dioxide decay, it was found that the air changes per hour (ACH) is ideal for all classrooms above ground when the windows were open, regardless of whether the fans were turned on. On the other hand, when the only ventilation is the air conditioner, there was low and insufficient ACH for any classroom regardless of its location. For rooms which were partially underground and enclosed, this problem was resolved similarly by turning on the fans and opening the windows, where cross ventilation yields ideal ACH. The exception was the case when two of these partially underground rooms were combined into one, where the ACH was only at a bare minimum even when the windows were opened and fans were turned on.
Thinking global, acting local: catalysing conversations on climate change through inquiry with Ipomoea Aquatica (Kangkong)
Ansley Koh, Yi Ming Quek, and myself
1st June 11:00 am to 12:00 pm, Virtual Room poster
This paper describes an independent research project conceptualized and conducted by a pair of secondary school students under the mentorship of a Research Scientist at the National Institute of Education. Global warming, and increase in temperature due to excessive greenhouse gas emissions, is a threat to plants. A warming of 1.5 - 2℃ in the tropics is predicted to cause crop yield reductions in the region, including Southeast Asia, and increase the risks for both heat waves and flooding. An intermediate possible scenario of global warming would be the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 (RCP 4.5). It is predicted that by around the mid-century period (2040 - 2069), the mean temperature in Singapore can increase by up to 2℃, to a mean temperature of 29.6℃ in a RCP 4.5 scenario. The temperature change can impact plants like food crops and heat-vulnerable plants, threatening our food supply and increasing the risk of extinction of vulnerable plant species, which are unable to adapt to the increasing temperatures. Ipomoea Aquatica, more commonly known as the Kangkong, is a heat-tolerant tropical vegetable, farmed in Southeast Asia and used in local dishes. Our experiment aims to observe whether this tropical plant that has adapted to be heat-resistant can grow well in global warming temperatures. We exposed the Kangkong to the predicted increase of 2℃ for three weeks. A range of climate variables was recorded through the use of Arduino sensors near the plant. Physical changes to the Kangkong plants were also measured and noted, such as the heights of the Kangkong in each set-up. By the 17th day, the Kangkong in the control set-up permanently overtook the one in the experimental set-up in height.
