An invention to assist the visually impaired in movement; a Service Learning endeavour to integrate migrant workers into the Singapore community; an app that promotes hawker culture to youths - what do these have in common? For one, they are all projects initiated and executed by Hwa Chongians.
Under the Project Work (PW) programme, students are able to work collaboratively on any area of interest, be it contribution to the community, conducting scientific, humanities or linguistic research and shedding light on an academic topic, or solving a current societal issue and even emerging problems of the future.
From Secondary Two, students embark on a year-long journey of imaginative and innovative inquiry with the guidance of teacher- or expert-mentors. Indeed, the PW programme often forms a springboard for Hwa Chongians’ stellar achievements on the national and international fronts. Students’ projects have obtained recognition at highly competitive Future Problem Solving competitions, Intelligent Ironman Creativity Contests, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and the Gifted Education Branch’s Humanities and Social Sciences Research Programme Symposium, to name a few.
Testimonial
“As a student starting out with Project Work a couple of years ago, my group wanted to help those whose world was not a bright palette of colours, but pitch black. With the guidance of our teacher-mentor, we decided to tackle the issue of the visually impaired knocking into overhead obstacles that their canes could not detect. Through much testing and interviews with the visually impaired, my group designed a product that helped to notify them of such obstacles. From this experience, we are glad to have an avenue, through Project Work, to work on something that we are truly passionate about, and which lets us walk in the shoes of the less privileged.”
- Chen Kay Den, Project Work award recipient (2019)