Component 3: Reflections on Science Experiences
These experiences can include laboratory sessions, fieldwork, excursions, sabbatical courses or any Science related activities.
Details of Activity
Term: 1/2
Name of Activity: CHAOS competition viewing
Objective of Activity: CHAOS is a competition whereby teams of students from different schools are given extremely difficult and complicated questions in mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology, and are given about a month to prepare and do research before presenting their findings or solutions in a coherent storyline to a panel of judges. These questions are very complex and unique and there is no one way to arrive at the answer. In depth research is required for every questions. Presentation skills and creativity are also tested through the acting.
Venue: Science Centre
Pictures of Activity
1. What have you learnt from the activity?
For as long as I have been in Singapore, all the competitions of every subject are extremely dull and boring, and are usually very structured-e.g. math olympiad, writing competition. This particular competition has really made me learn something applicable in real life instead of some useless head knowledge that is not practical. For example, they were tested on how to estimate the number of species on earth and something else related to mutations and gene sequences. I was truly wowed by the difficulty of the competition and the intelligence of the competitors.
http://www.science.nus.edu.sg/images//outreach/chaos/CHAOS_2014_Q.pdf
http://www.science.nus.edu.sg/images//outreach/chaos/NUS%20HIGH%20CHAOS_Team%201%202013%20-%20flattened.pdf
Click these 2 links for the questions and answers respectively. You will be shocked by the complexity of the questions that these mere secondary school students are expected to do.
2. What do you like most and least about the activity?
I liked the uniqueness and difficulty of the competition. I also liked that there was no specific answer or rubric and that it tested many different skills. It is also more relevant to real life as you learn research and presentation skills instead of for example olympiads where you are tested questions based on your own knowledge even though firstly it is not relevant to real life and secondly you can get the necessary information through other means in real life. The challenge of this competition is not knowledge alone but filtering out the correct information to use and how to present it in a systematic, creative and coherent manner.
I didn't like so much how the students were forced to act out the answers in a storyline. To me it was rather a waste of efforts of the students that did not contribute to the actual quality of the answers. One of the teams nush, did better than RI, even though I felt that there Science was much shallower. However they had more acting and that was probably the deciding factor for them to win. I feel that the rubrics should put little to no emphasis on the "storyline" which just gives another thing for the already burdened students to worry about.
I liked the uniqueness and difficulty of the competition. I also liked that there was no specific answer or rubric and that it tested many different skills. It is also more relevant to real life as you learn research and presentation skills instead of for example olympiads where you are tested questions based on your own knowledge even though firstly it is not relevant to real life and secondly you can get the necessary information through other means in real life. The challenge of this competition is not knowledge alone but filtering out the correct information to use and how to present it in a systematic, creative and coherent manner.
I didn't like so much how the students were forced to act out the answers in a storyline. To me it was rather a waste of efforts of the students that did not contribute to the actual quality of the answers. One of the teams nush, did better than RI, even though I felt that there Science was much shallower. However they had more acting and that was probably the deciding factor for them to win. I feel that the rubrics should put little to no emphasis on the "storyline" which just gives another thing for the already burdened students to worry about.
By the way Hwa Chong clinched first!!! :)
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