Synopsis:

Human Rights Watch says up to 20 million people are at risk from arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh where millions of people have suffered from what it calls "the biggest mass poisoning in human history". But could these purifying beads made out of resin be the answer? The social entrepreneurs behind Drinkwell have created a clean water solution for Bangladesh's arsenic poisoning crisis. But what’s their secret?

Drinkwell uses an extensive filtration set up to filter the raw water into clean and safe drinking water.

Teaching Points:

1. Teachers can use this issue to directly link to Sec 1 topic on Separating Mixtures - Filtration.

2. What is the importance of having so many stages of filtration?

3. How does Singapore filter our water to ensure it is safe to drink?

Further reading:

5 Things to Know About Arsenic in Drinking Water

Battling Arsenic Pollution

Synopsis: A 17 year old student carefully curated colour-changing stitches that will give an indication if a wound is infected. At only a fraction of a cost of 'smart sutures', this beet juice-coated sutures makes affordable surgical care accessible to the underprivileged populations. Around 5 billion people do not have access to surgical care worldwide, with 9 out of 10 people struggling to access basic surgical services in low- and middle- income countries, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has found. One will be amazed to know that these sutures operate based on simple high school chemistry, the idea of 'natural indicator'! How cool is that?!

Synopsis: The single common thread that people often complain is that there is simply not enough time. There is always a myriad of things to do and never enough time. Multitasking seems like a great way to get a lot done at once. It was supposed to be a so-called lifehacks where you try to "cheat time". However, research has shown that our brains are not nearly as good at handling multiple tasks as we like to think they are. In fact, some researchers suggest that multitasking can actually reduce productivity by as much as 40%. There is no such thing as multitasking. The truth? It's all about task-switching.

Talking Point:

1. Our brain is not actually capable of handling multiple tasks at once.

2. Multitasking can actually reduce productivity.

3. Our brain can only task-switch to compensate for multiple activities.

Synopsis: A father and a researcher, inspired by his son who is diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a cancer of the eye that left him with one eye and limited in vision, came up with bite-sized molecule models that take advantage of the mouth’s supersensitive touch sensors to make science more inclusive and accessible to people who are blind. Recognizing that the mouth’s remarkable sensing ability remains largely untapped in science education, he and his colleagues created edible (gummy) and nonedible models of proteins that students can explore with their mouths, fingers or eyes! Not only are they portable, inexpensive, disposable and encodable with flavour, students were able to recognise the structures with their mouth with approximately 85% accuracy, similar to recognition by eyesight.

Talking Point:

1. How can we make Science or STEM more inclusive?

Synopsis: Contrary to popular beliefs, emails do leave a carbon footprint. Most emails, including spam ones, are stored on cloud. Cloud storage requires a lot of electricity, which is generated by fossil fuels. This article explores the damage that emails can have on the environment and how we can do our part to reduce the impact.

Points to ponder:

1. In the interest of the environment, how can we choose the most appropriate channel of communication?

2. If given a choice, would you communicate via traditional methods (snail mails/telephone calls) or more modern methods (emails/social media/telecommunication apps), given that either options are equally damaging to the environment?

3. After reading the article, do you agree that HBL/WFH arrangements poses more issues to the environment?

Synopsis: Most of us know that athletes trains many hours a day for many years to achieve the results we see at the Olympics. However, is it sheer hard work that brings glory to some of these award-winning athletes? In this post, we will take a look at what sport science is and how math and science concepts can be applied to help athletes craft their strategies.

Points to ponder:

1. Using a math or science concept that you know, craft a strategy for a sport that you play frequently.

2. Do you agree that hard work has to be accompanied by strategy in order to ace in a sport?

3. Do you think that the strategies used in the videos attached in this post feasible and easy to execute? Why or why not?