Reflections on fieldtrip to Bukit Timah Hill

I must say the unconventional appeal to the 5 senses in our fieldtrip to Bukit Timah Hill was quite refreshing. I have to admit I was a little apprehensive at first when Dr Chang handed out the cards and gave us instructions to ponder about our individual instructions privately. In my head I was thinking, 'This offers limited benefits to a student in the field. The scope of what he/she can learn is sooo soooo constrained by the task outlined in his/her card!'

But I was pleasantly surprised at the end of it, when we came together as a group to ponder and share the results of our pseudo-independent field research. It was a master stroke to just get each student to simply present their field findings, WITHOUT revealing the questions that was presented to them in the cards. I found myself really engaged during the group session, for I was really curious to know what tasks my classmates got allocated during the fieldtrip. As a consequence, I paid extra attention to each of their sharing of research findings. Learnt much in the process, a pedagogical masterstroke!

Some thoughts though:

1) More elaborate detailed tasks needed. My card basically required me to answer the questions: Why is the forest so dark? Why is the forest so humid? These were interesting, revealing questions, but how long can I be engaged with them? I can see, observe and feel the conditions described in the card within 1 minute, the rest of the fieldtrip is basically me pondering the questions in my head. Note that we really only just walked a little while (10 minutes?) around the forest before we convened to discuss our thoughts. In a real life scenario, we'd probably be bringing the students around much longer to take in the sights. If presented with only simple tasks, they’d be bored and disengaged in no time. So, yeaps, good challenging engaging tasks which can really trigger and sustain their interest will be really important. If not, there is the potential for the fieldtrip exercise to turn out just flat.

2) I think the idea of combining / fusing of the traditional and unconventional method of field exercise is a really good one (as always, isn't it). So, for example, the above mentioned problem of students being disengaged with boredom can be resolved pretty easily by giving them the con-current activity of worksheets to be filled in. Also, as mentioned during the field trip, the traditional worksheet method is fundamental too to get students to grasp basic concepts.

3) Any thoughts on what other ideas we can have, other than appealing to the 5 senses? Role play? E.g. pass out cards to each and every individual student, have them role-play a particular stake-holder of the area we have the fieldtrip at (e.g. conservationists, local dwellers, government development officials etc.). That would include some environmental management and human aspect to the field study. Oh man, I’m too much a human geographer.. can't really think of creative things.. esp if its natural vegetation we are talking about. Plantssss!!! AHHH!!!

That being said – have any of you watched David Attenborough’s The Private Life of Plants before? It's the most brilliant documentary ever. In it, (Sir) David Attenborough employed the (then) advanced technology of using time-sequenced videos to show how plants grow, germinate etc. Something so boring, static and non-interactive like shrubs and flowers gets a new breath of life!! Wow. I love David Attenborough and his BBC documentaries… I have the tapes if you wanna borrow. Yes tapes. Not even VCDs. VHS tapes.. haha.

David Attenborough's a good teacher. He's like an educator, communicating to an audience important knowledge that he wants to impart about the natural environment in his documentaries. And he does it pretty darn well, adopting new technologies and creative ideas/concepts/methods that will appeal and most importantly, relate to the audience. Are we able to do as such as teachers in the classroom? And in the field?