Special Programme in Inquiry and REsearch (SPIRE)
The Specialised Programme in Inquiry and Research (SPIRE) is NJC's signature programme under Research@NJC where students conduct their self-designed critical inquiry project under the mentorship of a teacher mentor in specialised disciplines (e.g. material science, computational science, mathematical modelling and product design) within the Sciences, Mathematics, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Innovation.
SPIRE is conducted in 3 phases – Research Design Phase, Experimentation Phase and Communication Phase. Through this programme, students gain invaluable learning opportunities in crafting a research problem via close analysis of the knowledge schema in a particular academic field through critical reading of existing literature, designing feasible experimental protocol and actualising their plans through collaborative experimental work. Students will culminate their SPIRE journey through a formal professional presentation and a thesis report of their work to their peers and a wider audience.
SST is fortunate to participate in the SPIRE project with 10 students in the following projects:
1. The Observation and Determination of Variable Star Types
S4-05 CHONG YU LIN
2. Investigation on the effect of electricity on hydroponic plants
S4-07 DAVID GOH DEWEI; S4-03 SHAUN MAX SUDHAKAR
3. Determination of the Specific Energy of Biofuel from Algae, Nannochloropsis sp.
S4-06 TAY YU JIE; S4-03 WU WANGHONG
4. Investigation of the atmospheric conditions over the Straits of Malacca using a radio-telescope
S4-05 THI HAN SOE ZAW; S4-05 TAN ZNG HIONG
5. Protein level in different leafy amaranthus species in Singapore
S4-01 NG SHI YU
6. Investigation of Thermal Comfort in a typical classroom in Singapore
S4-01 THANGARAJA PRASANNA; S4-05 KOH MENG HEAN, JASPER
The Science Training and Research (STaR) Programme is the flagship programme of Research@NJC.
A natural step forward upon the completion of the SPIRE programme, students can extend their learning and further their research interest under the programmes offered under the STaR Programme. The programmes under the STaR programme are either local research programmes or overseas research programmes.
On 9 Feb 2021, the students undergo a quizzing by judges to evaluate their research efforts.
On 10 Feb 2021, the participants attended a research symposium online to celebrate their efforts in research.
One of the projects that our students were involved in achieved the best in category of Sustainability and Environmental Studies towards Engineering and Design. The project was:
"Determination of the Specific Energy of Biofuel from Algae, Nannochloropsis sp."
TAY YU JIE (S4-06); WU WANGHONG (S4-03); BAI ZIRUI (NJC)
I feel honoured to participate in the collaboration between NJC and SST and participating in STaR Quizzing and then the STaR Symposium. I felt that in the situation of a pandemic, it was significantly more challenging to collaborate and work together. We could not visit each others' school and did most work via online video conferencing. This has further strengthened my online collaboration skills. Through the 10 months of collaboration, I have also learnt the importance of adaptation as we meet new challenges frequently (Tay Yu Jie, S4-06).
I found this a very enriching experience for myself and I do not regret signing up for this programme even though I did not win any awards. I managed to make good use of the time in the December holidays to advance my research and practical skills, which I find are very valuable to me. During the course of the project, we failed many times and only managed to succeed towards the end of the project. It is because of this that I learnt a lot about the different methods of protein precipitation and why certain methods did not work as planned. I feel that this process of trial and error was an exciting and enriching experience and I am glad that I managed to seize this opportunity (Ng Shi Yu, S401).
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