Y.O!

(Ed’s note: Remember our pop quiz? Yup! The September Project 2008 is done! What is this September Project? Well basically it’s a grassroots effort to encourage events about freedom and democracy in all libraries in all countries during the month of September. It started in 2004 to break the silence following September 11, and to invite all people into libraries to consider topics of patriotism, democracy, and citizenship. Initially, events focused on September 11 and largely took place on September 11. As the project evolved, events spread throughout the month of September and focused on issues of freedom and democracy. Our teens from CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School sat down long and hard, and did a giant interactive game board, smack in the middle of V.A.T at Jurong Regional Library.

Let’s have a look at what Rachel has to say.)

Posted by Rachel Phoa, Age 14 

Upon arrival, Vanessa, Pui San, Han Wen, Wei Lin, Samantha, Vivian, Fiona, Jia Yun and I were greeted by Kaydence and led into the programme room on the third floor of Bishan library. The journey to the third floor of the library was basically like a tour. I was mesmerized by their vast variety of books and how organized the books were shelved.

Entering the glass-paneled room, we quickly got to work. Not wasting a second, Kaydence briefed us on what we were supposed to do.

It turned out that we were given 29 panels to do an interactive games board on Our Nation’s heritage, culture and history on landmarks.

We gathered together to think of ideas. The idea came fast from Samantha. She thought of using trains, which made me think of the LRT, but we settled for the MRT instead, which is more appropriate considering the size of our games board.

Kaydence got us some books on Singapore for our reference and we flipped through the many pages of all the books and came up with several names of landmarks to research on.

Through this ‘flipping through books’ exercise, I learnt many more places of interest in Singapore which I had never known of. I never thought there were this many. All the places of interest I knew of were just those frequently mentioned ones, like Sentosa, EXPO, etc, and I thought I knew every corner of Singapore already!

After that, we cut large coloured papers of red and silver, similar to colours used for Singapore’s national day! These strips of paper are used for the making of the outline of the MRT, which is now pasted on the fourth floor of Jurong library. Without the use of the paper-cutter, we painstakingly cut the many strips of paper with scissors, which we then took home to cut and we also did the research at home.

The last day, we had a different group of people who went with us; they are Vivian, Ching Yan, Betty, Fiona, Vanessa, Dominic, Patricia, Wei Lin, Samantha and me!

We got to Jurong library after the teachers’ day celebration to prepare for the final making of our masterpiece. Vanessa and Dominic did the mini-banners of the names of the different MRT stations and the editing of our research, while the rest of us made the outline of the MRT with strips of cut paper.

While we were at it, Kaydence made the head and tail of the train, with the driver at the front driving. As we made the passengers in the train too small, the driver Kaydence made looked like a giant in comparison to the passengers, which was hilarious.

Another problem we encountered was, we had to ask the people leaning against the glass panels to make way for us as we had to paste the papers onto the glass panels.

We had to ask them one by one, not forgetting to always thank them, they also made way willingly.

After we were done with the making of the MRT, filled with passengers, we pasted the information of the various MRT stations and the mini-banners. After the touch-up, we played the game to make sure the game could work. It was a success!

This project would not be such a success without the help of Kaydence and Dominic, who helped us when we were short-handed, the rest of us and not forgetting the people who made way for us without any hesitation!

Final product:

Come to the Jurong Regional Library to have a look at our MRT game I guarantee you it’s a game you’ve never played before, and will never find anywhere else! Train in service for the entire month of September. Go check out The September Project webbie to find out more about the story behind our MRT.

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