Unfortunately, COVID-19 has resulted in many schools unable to complete fieldwork-based internal assessment (IA) and overseas experiential field trips due to safety precautions and the inability to travel. Over the last couple of months, our Singapore team has been working hard to find ways to run Singapore-based trips safely with our local school clients to solve their issues.
Geography Fieldwork
With the relaxation of COVID-19 controls into Phase Two in Singapore, Ecofieldtrips has successfully conducted in-person field trips for International Baccalaureate students from Canadian International School and SJI International School for their Biology, Environmental Systems and Societies (ESS) and Geography IA projects with a couple more due over the next month or two.
Running a trip amid COVID-19 meant that trips had to be run differently. From our usual 1 staff to 10 students ratio and in-person guidance, we moved over to online discussions and smaller groups during data collection. With our tour agency license aiding in obtaining the necessary approvals from various Government agencies, we followed their guidelines and put in place safety measures such as small groups, temperature taking, trace together tracking, and safe distancing between participants. Also, trips had to be done over multiple days, split up into different ecosystems, to allow for smaller groups to be out in the field.
In preparation for the data collection, students were given either an online introduction presentation of the ecosystems or a day of exploration in-person at the respective ecosystems. They then submitted their preferred ecosystem and research questions online, allowing our EFT team to check the questions, give any necessary feedback, and engage in one-to-one conversations. This ensures the high quality of the questions submitted and the interaction.
Mangrove Survey
On data collection morning, our EFT team picked the students up from their school and headed out to our respective ecosystems. As project planning sessions were held online, our EFT team made sure to go through all of our students’ questions and methodology again, ensuring that all of the students understood and knew what they had to do for their IA project. Despite wearing a mask in the sweltering heat and heavy rain, all of the students were very cooperative and hardworking, allowing the trips to run successfully with good feedback from the schools.
“One of the best moments during the fieldwork was when we were in the rainforest and it started to rain quite heavily however we were running low on time and thus did not stop our data collection. Amidst the chaos of counting the number of ferns in a quadrat, my friends and I paused to appreciate the environment for a moment. ”
Statistics Presentation by EFT Staff, Laura
As a follow-up to data collection, an in-person statistics workshop was conducted by some of our EFT staff for all of the students at their school. This workshop is vital at the end of data collection to teach students on how to apply, analyse, and present the data that they’ve collected in their report.
For other Singapore-based schools intending to resume syllabus or experiential field trips with Ecofieldtrips can rest assured that the quality of education received by the students will not be compromised despite COVID-19 restrictions. Our Ecofieldtrips team is working very hard to ensure that all requests are met and safety measures are enforced during our trips. Contact us now at info@ecofieldtrips.com
Theresa Neo - EFT Biologist
