The first part of this course discusses some issues of the nature of science (NOS), scientific literacy and the use of history of science for teaching. Dr. Tan Aik Ling shared about the 7 tenets of the NOS and shared how we could bring about these elements of science into our teaching such that students do not just learn about science as a form of knowledge in silos, but the nature of scientific knowledge and processes itself. We were also informed about how the nature of science and scientific literacy have been included in the new Science Curriculum Framework. Thus, I chose to create a 5-week NOS curriculum as my assignment despite it being the most difficult choice of assignment out of the lot (the other two being a 1000/2000 word essay). I enjoyed the challenge as I got to think critically about how I would introduce these elements of NOS to my students and what activities could be conducted and the scaffolding necessary.

The second part of the course focused on field trips. We made a visit to Bollywood Veggies and the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum as part of exposing us to the types of resources/ opportunities available for field trips in Singapore. My group then decided to plan and conduct an open inquiry-based field trip to Singapore Botanic Gardens to allow students to study the role of conservation in Singapore and how it intersects with the scientific, political, economical and social spheres.

Finally, for the last part of the course, we were tasked to create an instructional package for an assigned topic. I was allocated Transport in Humans which is actually one of the topics that I dread most as I had never taught it and remembering the cardiac cycle was something I was not good at. Nevertheless, I was thankful for this opportunity to tackle one of my biggest topical fears head on and produce a piece of work that I am proud of.