Personal Reflection...

All veggie groups had joined together and formed a group called Food4Life. We planned to carry out a big bang event which belongs to Food4Life. After discussing and planning, we thought that with this big bang event we can score a good grade for our RE project. However, Mr. Sarkkunan told us that to obtain a good grade for RE, we have to instead carry out our own project and the final product must be something that is done by our own group, but not Food4Life. Therefore, we have to plan and discuss all over again.

We had several group meetings during this whole week and our decision is finally being finalized, that is to carry out a VegeDay. Each of us thought of at least one activity that can be carried out on that day. And we are given our role and things that we are in-charged of. I have come out with an idea which is to carry out a demo on how to make vegetarian dishes. We will be discussing in details with our teacher mentor and external mentor on this Wednesday.

Personal reflection

After months of planning and discussions, we thought that synergizing the Food4Life group would be enough to give us good grades fro our project, until Mr. Sarkkunan told us that the so called "RE requirements" require us to conduct the project on our own and the final product must be something done by our own team, not the Food4Life team. This was very demoralizing to me at first. I feel that all these months of plannings, sending proposals, discussing about the big bang, were pointless and they were down to the drain in the end. But what can i do about it? Absolutely nothing. The school demanded it. Hence we have no choice but to follow it...

Right after we recieved the bad new from Mr. Sarkkunan, instead of feeling angry and dissatisfied, we moved on to plan for our own project. After several group discussions, we came to a finalized decission, which is to carry out a Vege Day, an event that we will be helding in school. The details of this event is highly classified, only members of the group know about it and we're planning to duscuss about it with our teacher mentor and our external mentor the next time we see them...

Personal reflection

Kern Hong: Personal Reflections......

Well, another week has passed....

During our weekly discussion, we dicuss about our role and responsibilities, as an individual and as a group. We, the 4 vege proups are now more clear about our roles to play as a group.

Also we tasted the VEGETARIAN CHICKEN RICE that were sampled to us. The ingredients: brown rice, vege slices, mocked meat with ginger stuffings. I think it was delicious! Honestly....
The cost price was slightly more than 1 dollar. Well, we are planning to introduce this vege chicken rice to the school canteen and are now still on the planning stage to this event.

Monday: another day of interview with the reporters. Kah Wah and I, with another 4 boys, met up with the reporters from New Strait Times this time round and had an interview with them. It took longer this time(2and the half hours) compared to the otime we had with the reporters from lianhewanbao. The reporter intervewed us, asking us about our project, in detail. Then, we took photograph with the burger again, like models, except it was posting with burgers!

Two days before the interview, Mr Yeow and and few of the key leaders in each group met up at the NATIONAL LIBRARY at Bugis to discuss about the interview that will be held on Monday. We discussed how to answer the questions that will be asked by the reporter from New Strait Times. It was about a 2 hour session.

Our group, the vege group have also met up 3 times this week to discuss on our future plans on the VEGE DAY. We have made a big progress this week. We are planning to have a Vege Day as an individual group somewhere In July.

I really feel that I can now really concentrate on this project as I have just finish my tournament and I have more time for other stuff. I think that with our rate of progrees now(after all the tournaments), I think that we as group, will succeed in this project!

Every member in the group is more compromising and are getting along well with each other. I am looking forward to the future events that we will do regarding this project, espeacially the Vege Day! Let's hope for the better.....

Personal Reflection...

I have researched on the environmental issues that are caused by meat consumption. However, this is not an easy task; you can’t find anything you want on internet. Therefore, I only managed to find two environmental issues: global warming and forest depletion. Besides, I also have not enough time to do research because I have busy schedule with badminton and also need the time for study.

I feel that my group has done their best in doing the project, despite there is room for improvement. The roles and responsibilities are distributed to everyone so that everyone contributes to the project.

I also feel that there are areas that we need to improve. After the burger launch, we are now trying to promote vegetarian chicken rice. For me, it feels like we are not doing our own project but following Mr. Yeow’s idea instead. Besides, we have planned some activities to carry out but we have not done our preparation. I hope that we can prepare well and complete our tasks before deadline.

by cheng yuen

Personal Reflection

For me, actually I have not been doing much. I have done not much research, mainly because it is really time-consuming. I only do my research every Thursday after school. This is because I still need to manage my time for my schoolwork. I am planning to increase the period of my research to one more day, so that I can obtain more information. Talking about time-consuming, it is really true. For example, when I was researching on the Atkin's Diet craze in the 1980s last Thursday, I took about two hours but in the end only manage to make a few slide. This is solely due to fact that some scientists believe that Atkin's Diet is healthy but some scientists believe that it is not. Therefore, I need to read quite a few articles before judging and my reading speed is not that fast. This is the problem that I have reiterated for quite a few times and I still feel that it is the main problem for me. In addition, now I also face one more problem, that is when I am judging the reliability of a particular source, I sometimes feel inclined to support the meat-eater side. Though, I cannot do that because if I do so, my main objective which is to spread awareness will not work. People will feel that I am contradictiong myself if I were to advocate the meat-eater side. These two big problems were still left for me to solve. Pity.
I feel that my group conducted quite well these few weeks. Firstly, I want to apologize for my teammates as I feel that I was very inconsiderate for them because I demanded too much from them, even though they are very busy for their CCAs and schoolwork. Though, sometimes I still feel that we should push out of our comfort zone. I think that the feeling of success that we might experience in the end will worth the hardwork and efforts that we put in. Pump up, guys. Think of the plans for Vegetarian Day. If each person were to contribute at least one idea, it will be 5 ideas and it will be surely be enough a single day. I have the idea of making a Veggie T-shirt. Is this destined to be a flattery skill again by the willingful but stupid human beings advertising for us? Do you hear that, it is a walking advertisement! Ingenious!
So far, I have learnt more about vegetarianism and the effects of meat on the environment which is the only thing not known by me about meat. Frankly, I think that I still haven't learn anything about service learning. We still haven't do anything about that. New area for improvement? Yes! Through this project, I have learnt that teamwork is very important and researching is not as easy as I previously thought. That's all this time.

Term 2 week 4

On the 15th of April, we had a meeting with Mr.Goh first and after that with Mr.Yeow. Mr. Goh briefed us about what we should be doing for the following weeks. He demanded that we make perfect our proposal and also prepare for the presentation next week. Then he gave all the groups a peice of large paper to write about what are our roles and so on. After that, he handed over the time to Mr. Yeow. Mr. Yeow was talking about the burger launch thing and he too demanded us to improve our proposal. 

So far, I had mix feelings about the project that we have been carrying out. I felt that i have tried and gave my very best into the project. I have been completing whatever tasks that were allocated to me despite my busy schedule on squash. Yes it's my season right now and yes i'm very very busy with it. Sometimes i felt very discouraged with all the project tasks that were thrown to me. First of all, i have insufficient time. All of my precious time were either stolen away from tests, homeworks, assignments, squash etc, and there's not much time left for RE. Secondly, without a laptop, doing ALL  of those tasks is impossible. Everytime before the deadline, i have to run up and down looking for my seniors to borrow a laptop. Lastly, calling everyone for discussions or doing the project is one difficult thing to do. Everyone's schedule is so packed and there's hardly any free time that can be spared for the project.

Hence, i hope that all the parties involved will understand our situation. Its not easy to be a sportsman when all the school work and projects are piling up on me. Hope you'll will understand...

Kern Hong: My Personal Reflections.....

Well, I feel that we have accomplished much. Yes! We have accomplished MUCH! No matter what anyone says. We, as a team, have done well and have been trying our very best to make perfect this project.

As for my own task and responsibilities, I feel that I have tried my very best and have given out my best in my roles and things that are assigned to me. Despite my busy schedule with badminton…and more badminton, I am satisfied with what I have accomplished so far. The planning of events…distributing flyers…pasting posters on the stall…the burger launch…interviewing with the press…

As a team, we have organized ourselves well and are still improving. Compared to the start of term, when we were still not settled down and not familiar with the project, we have done much better in our work distribution and time management.

All that we have done, especially the burger launch, have spread much awareness to the students of our school. Now, I believe that the school is more aware of the food they eat.

Throughout this project, I think that I have learnt much. This includes mainly of team work and taking our roles and responsibilities seriously. I learned that when even ONLY one of our members does not contribute, the whole thing stops progressing.

Service learning is a good thing for students to do. Students get to expose themselves to the community and learn how to interact with them, solving problems and facing challenges along the way.

However, these projects ought to be FUN!... Not something that you dread doing, right? In my opinion, these projects should be more flexible and should concentrate LESS on final reports and documented stuff. They should NOT be so straight and have too many guidelines. As long as the students mind and heart are onto it, they can be considered as doing WELL.

OVERALL, I think that I HAVE DONE WELL…. But there will always be room for improvement. So I guess that I just have to continue to work hard and try to contribute as much as I can to this project.

Lastly, I just want to say in a polite manner, that we are students. Much is expected from us in many areas, and sometimes we just can’t be good in everything. We have many responsibilities and many roles to play and we need to balance our time and concentrate in those that we are weak at.

As a sportsman, I have been busy in my trainings and tournaments. It’s the season and I need to prepare well for it. At the mean time, I….don’ have enough time or energy to put our fullest commitment into this project. It’s HARD! But as the season starts to end, I PROMISE that I will give my very best and contribute more to this project.

Hope that everyone who is involve in this project in one way or another, understands the situation that I am going through, especially my teammates and my teacher mentor. Hope you all understand….

That’s all from me….............................

Burger Launch.

The burger launch should be considered as a success as I think we sold quite a number of burger, even though not up to the number that we expected. I think the main objective for the burger launch is to create more awareness though I don't see any difference before and after the launch. Hehe. I think we should try to scrutinize the flaws of the launch and try to improve them, so that we do even better in our big bang event-VegeDay. Posters will not work, for sure, I don't see any people reading or even glimpsing our posters. That's all.

My Role In The Team.

My role in the team is the team leader. My job is to lead the team. I always act as an advisor for the group. I always try to give ideas for improvement on the ideas that we have brainstormed. I am also responsible to do the health aspect of vegetarianism. I have been researching for a while on my research topic. Sometimes I feel very quite hard to judge what I have been researching as I feel that both sides, pro-vegetarianism and pro-meat-eater have their own evidences to support their stances. I am also in charge on interviewing. I have not been contacting anyone yet but soon, most probably during the holidays as I will be freer. I feel that our group will success in the end if we stay bonded to each other and be cooperative.

Term 2 week 3

On wednesday's RE period, we were discussing only about the burger launch which is on the 13th of April. We had already put up posters at the canteen and everything was ready except for the announcement to be made during assembly. The announcement was scheduled to be made on Thursday but unfortunately it was raining, so the assembly was cancelled and all anouncement was made through the class PA system. The announcement was brief and it was rather soft. I doubt that students are able to hear it at first. But after it was made, my classmates were talking about it so i think it was succesful.

On Monday, we were anxiously waiting for the announcement to be made but somehow the prefect in charge didn't make the announcement. 15 minutes before recess, i was asked by Mr.Yeow to proceed to the canteen for the press to interview me. The interview took about 10 minutes and i was rather relax throughout the process. After the interview, the reporters took a couple of pictures which are kinda funny. We were asked to pose to the camera with the burgers in our hands. Haha. It seemed that the overall respond was quite good and the queue was long and continuous. Mr.Yeow was satisfied with it and he decided to extend the launch another day. The next day, another announcement was made regarding to the extend of the burger launch. The respond was the same as yesterday's as many students were queuing up for the burger. I can call this burger launch as a succesful one :)

The Burger Launch? Well....

The burger launch in the RI canteen was held yesterday, on the 13 of march. Well, below is the list of things that has happen throughout this whole process.

We planed announce about the event during the assembly last Friday, which was on the 10th of April. Unfortunately, luck was not on our side. It drizzled in the morning so the assembly was cancelled and we had to announce our event through the intercom in class, which was not all that effective.

However, on Monday, we managed to announce about the event during the assembly. And by sticking posters about the event in each class, I guess that everyone was quite well informed about the event.

During recess, the press from lianhezaopao and lianhewanpao came to interview us on the event. Our team, the veggie lovers team, gave comments on this burger launch thingy and answer the questions that were thrown at us by the reporters. We also took many pictures by posing with the burger.

I think that this burger launch was quite a success. I believe that because of the reporter’s presence and the fact that they came to interview us and inspect the event, many students were attracted to it. Everyone was curious and wanted to see what was happening and eventually bought a burger, at least most of them. Most of them commented that the burger was quite delicious despite being vegetarian. I think that word by mouth played quite an important part too in this event. I told many friends about this event and encouraged them to come and support. I could say that 80% of them turned up! It was great!

However, they were some setbacks. Originally, we planned to let the students answer 2 quizzes about vegetarianism before allowing them to buy the burger at 50 cents. I think that the event was too properly organized, so the students did not quite understand how the whole thing worked. In the end, the students just had to pay 50 cents and get one burger. But overall, I think that it was still a great success despite this little problem. Everything went on very smoothly…

The next day, Tuesday, we sold the burger for the same price once again, which was not our original idea. This was because there was an overwhelming demand for the burger (because of its price:))….haha. Surprisingly, we still sold many burgers, almost as many as the 1st day.

In conclusion, I think that this was a very very very very successful event all together. Although we had to go through many hard times and had a difficult time putting up the posters and preparing the event, the results paid off, it was worth it. I really hope that we can have more of this type of events in the future. Besides the awareness, there is also a slight sense of achievement, greatness and publicity within us during this event. I have become more enthusiasts in this project after this event.

Let’s hope that they will be more successes in the future for this group. It has been a good start. Let’s hope that it will be better.

Burger Day Launch 1st Day

The vegetarian burger event was launch yesterday at the RI school canteen. We had a supply of 300 burgers by VSS ( Vegetarian Society Singapore ). On that day morning, no announcement was made during the assembly due to some technical problem, which is mentioned by the carrot group, that Mr. Teo rejected it. But during the first recess, the selling of the burger was actually quite a success despite lacking of announcement, the stall sold about 100+ burgers. During the second recess, we also sold 100+ burgers. And we sold some during lunch time. This project is quite a success because of all the help of the teams, teacher mentor's guidance and VSS for their support. The students and school is also supportive to our project. Besides that, there were also press from 联合早报 and 联合晚报. Kah Wah was the representative from our group. He went there around 10.45 to meet up with the press. During the second recess, the press eventually met up with all the group members. We took photos and being asked some question about the burger.

Although the burger launch event is quite a successful one, but one of our plans was not executed because the announcement was actually not made during that day. The announcement was actually made on last thursday, 9th of April, but it was not that clear because we actually do not have a assembly because it was drizzling that morning. So, we only got to listen to the announcement in class but it was not that effective due to the noisiness of the class. So, we had decided that we use the quiz for other purposes in the future like putting them in the vegetarian day thingy.

Here are some feedbacks from the fellow Raffles Institution students :

Yuan Jing : I think that the burger is very nice, and it is cheap too. The mushroom in the burger doesn't taste like one, it taste like meat. Actually I think that this burger can replace those meat burgers on sale. I actually bought 4 burgers today, and I hope for more......

Jae Li : I think that this burger is nice. The price is cheap, that's what i think that it is attacting the people to buy it. But it tastes great though.....

Unknown Sec 2 student : I think that the price of the burger is very cheap, but if the price returns to 1.60, I think nobody will buy it because it is not worth it as meat burger is cheaper by 10cents and it is more filling. But, i think the burger is fine.

Although most of the feedbacks is showing a good sign, but actually some of the pupils think that the burger is not worth the price. In our group's opinion, the students were actually attracted by the price, they actually didn't think about anything else besides the price. They don't even care about what is inside the burger. So, we conclude that maybe people nowadays buy and eat things base on their price, but not the healthiness and environmental-friendliness of the food. On the other hand, we think that the burger's taste is great, it will actually continue to be a popular food in the canteen as most people now is buying it frequently, people actually buy 2-4 burgers each. The demand for it was high, so we think it is quite a good sign. But we felt that we need to improve on the publication side because the quiz part actually did not work because of poor publicity.

Burger Launch Day

Burger launch day was held on Monday (13/4) and Tuesday (14/4).

Last Thursday, an announcement was made to tell the school about the burger launch day on next Monday and Tuesday. However, since that day it seemed to rain so we had “morning assembly” in class, the students made a lot of noise during the announcement. I was worried if they had received the message and whether the burger launch day would be a success.

On Monday, the announcement was not made in the morning but during recess a lot of people went to buy the burger. We were called to the canteen during recess for photo taking. After that, we were asked to promote the burgers. I asked my classmates to try the burgers and they were quite supportive. Really thank them for having the heart to help.

The next day, I received some feedbacks which said that the burgers were quite nice; despite some of them do not like the taste of the patty. I think the burger launch days were a success, but whether it can convey the message we wanted to convey, that is another thing.

Done by Cheng Yuen

My Role In The Team

What have i been doing:

Throughout the whole project that we have been carrying so far, we have been assigned to various tasks and assignments. I have been very involved into the team's activity and I have work fairly hard for the team. Throughout the process, I had took various initiatives in leading the team to work. I had took part in all the discussions and i have also gave relevant ideas in carrying out the project. Besides, I have always been emailing our teacher mentor Mr.Goh and also our external mentor Mr. Yeow regarding our project proposals and meeting arrangements.

What are my future role in the project:

Throughout the whole month of April, i will be researching on important issues regarding to the environment. Besides that, i will also be partnering with Kern Hong in giving talks about vegetarianism to create awareness. In addition, before giving the talks, we will do some preparation and rehearse on it. I will also be leading the team to discuss with various key figures for instance our school's principal, canteen commitee, various subjects' HODs. At the end of the project, i will be taking part in the composing of the final report of our project. That will be carried out during August.

Kern Hong: What We Have Done And My Role In The Team

What have We been doing:

Throughout these few weeks of discussion concerning this project, we have made many preparations and have been planning activities that would raise awareness among the students of RI.

First of all, we have planned to meet with the press so as to share with the public the importance of vegetarianism and how heavy the issue of the over-consuming of meat is to our planet. We have already made arrangements to meet up with Ms Florence Sim, who is in charge of our meeting with the press. However, we are have not met up with her yet and are planning to do so soon.

Secondly, we have decided that we will have a veggie burger launch next monday, that is on the 13th of April, which will be the most important event of this project. Students have to answer several questions about vegeterism to enable them to buy a vegetarian burger. The Answers can be found on one of the canteen stores that have been pasted with many poster for students to find their answers to their questions.

We have also printed out many poster and have pasted them in every class from sec 1 to sec 4 to inform the students about the veggie burger day next monday.


My role:

My team and I have been discussing with Mr. Yeow regarding our individual rolls in this vegetarian project. As for me, I have been assigned to various tasks.

My team and I, consisting of Kah Wah, Wei Herr, Yong Xien, Cheng Yuen and I have been planning to meet up with the press. However, as I have mentioned earlier, we have not met up with her yet and are planning to do so soon, probably after the veggie burger launch.

On the 5th of April, My team, together with Mr. Yeow had also spent an hour and a half putting up posters and information about vegetarianism on one of the canteen stores. This is a preparation towards the burger launch day for student to find the answers to their questions to enable them to buy a veggie burger for $0.50.

On the 7th of April, I have also pasted the posters in every class to inform students about the burger launch day on the 13th of April. I have done this together with my teammates by pasting information about the veggie burger on each class's notice boards. I will also be anouncing to the school and remind them about the event on the burger launch day itself, during assembly.

Besides that, Kah Wah and I have also been assigned to give talks to various groups to create awareness. We will of course, be preparing ourselves so as to be able to convince them about the importance of vegetarianism.

In the research department, I have teamed up with Wei Herr and have been assigned to research on "world hunger" and its connection to vegetarianism. This will be long term task and Wei Herr and I are working on it at the moment and will do our job seriously.

In addition, I will also be taking part in the final composing of the project report, where we will have to list done what we have done so far, and what have we accomplised. But that won't be due until August.


Ps: Mr Goh and Mr Yeow, Cheng Yuen and I would like to say sorry for consistently not been able to attend the RE meetings on Wednesdays. We have been very busy with our badminton tournaments as now its the tournament season. However, the season will be over in less than 3 weeks time and we promise that we will try and do our very best to contribute to this project. Thank you.

Cheng Yuen: My role in the RE group...

This time, I will blog about my role in the RE group. There are some tasks that we will carry out throughout the year like research on some topics, persuade canteen vendors, give talks, and design and distribute flyers.

One of my group mates, Kah Wah, and I will be doing research on “Environmental Issues”. So far, I had done the research on two issues: “how does meat consumption contribute to global warming?” and “how does meat consumption contribute to forest depletion?”. From the first issues, according to a 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), we know that the meat causes more greenhouse gases than the transportation and industry. The greenhouse gases like CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide trap solar energy, thereby warming up the Earth’s surface. From the second solution, we know that land for grazing is needed for animals like cows and lambs. To provide land for the animals in a densely forested region, rainforests are cut.

Besides working on the research, Wei Herr and I will be designing and distributing the flyers to RI students. The flyers will contain information to tell the students about the disadvantages of consuming meat and the advantages of consuming vegetables. The flyers have not been designed yet as we haven’t thought of any ideas to design the flyers. Moreover, as stated in the proposal submitted last week, we will touch on this task earliest in May.