Applied Learning Programme (ALP)
MASTERY THROUGH APPLICATION AND RESEARCH IN STEM (MARS)
Clementi Town Secondary School offers its ALP programme abbreviated MARS under the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) strand and seeks to develop our students to be Future-ready Clementeens who possess digital literacy and are architects of their own STEM learning.
The ALP framework reflects the emphasis on developing Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skills in our students, in addition to Thinking, Collaborative and Communications skills.
The objectives of MARS are to provide opportunities for Clementeens to:
- nurture curiosity, develop creativity, and encourage innovation in STEM
- be actively engaged in problem-solving processes
- actively explore activities that would ignite an interest in the Digital and Green Economy
- make meaningful connections across different subject disciplines and develop a deeper understanding of the real-world relevance of STEM and Emerging Technologies
- develop 21CC through authentic applications and hands-on learning
As part of applied learning, programmes have been designed to enable students to work through problems in groups and to come up with practical solutions and real products. This authentic and hands-on approach would provide additional platforms for our Clementeens to practice 21st century skills such as creative problem solving, team work and analytical thinking and also turn our Clementeens from passive consumers into active producers of technology.
The MARS Curriculum caters to the diverse needs and aspirations of STEM learning of our students.
Tier 1 - Integrated of STEM in the Lower Secondary English Language, Mathematics and Science Curricula
STEM-related skills and content knowledge, aligned to the STEM ALP Emerging Technologies Contextualised Themes, will be integrated in the Lower Secondary English Language, Mathematics and Science curriculum (ALP Tier 1) that exposes students to applied pedagogy, real world applications and develops in our students’ Computational Thinking, Problem-solving, Collaborative, Communications, Numerical Literacy & Data Analysis skills.
Tier 2 – Workshops, Enrichment Courses and Competitions
Students who have displayed an interest to explore STEM-related activities at a deeper level would be given the opportunity to participate in Workshops, Enrichment Courses and Competitions, such as Swift Explorers Singapore, the Swift Coding Club, AI for Youth Programme, AI for Everyone Programme and the AR/VR Workshop.
Swift Explorers Singapore
The Swift Explorers Singapore provides students with an excellent opportunity to think like an App Developer and identify problems that they care about. Thereafter, participants would plan, prototype, and share app ideas that everyone could access and understand.
This programme comprises of 3 phases:
Phase 1: Inclusive App Design Activity (5 hours of SDL activities)
Phase 2: Everyone Can Code Bootcamp (5 hours of virtual workshops)
Phase 3: Build Apps with Swift Playgrounds (for selected teams)
Apple Swift Programming
The Apple Swift Programme brings an accessible introduction to mobile app development in Swift for iOS devices, by providing Clementeens with a chance to learn about introductory programming concepts in Swift. Upon completion of this programme, students would have learnt:
- Basic programming concept in the Swift language
- How to use the Xcode or Swift Playgrounds development environments to create and run apps
- How to use core iOS frameworks such as SwiftUI to design and build a series of guided apps
- Design and storytelling skills to propose, build, and present a meaningful app prototype on a social entrepreneurship theme
AR/VR Workshop at HCI
Eighteen Secondary 3 Clementeens participated in the Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) Workshop organised by Hwa Chong Institution (HCI) on 17 and 18 May 2022. During this workshop, our students learnt how to create Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality projects, while establishing collaborations with their peers from Hwa Chong Institution.
AI Bootcamp
A 5-day Artificial Intelligence (AI) Bootcamp was organised during the June Holidays to:
provide Clementeens, who have demonstrated an interest and passion for programming, the opportunity to develop deep technology skills for the emergent fields of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.
further inspire and ignite our Clementeens’ passion for Technology through application of these skills in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
At the end of the bootcamp, participants created their own projects. Please click on the image below to find out more about one of the AI projects that was created upon completion of the bootcamp.
Tier 3 – Participation in Olympiad Training, App Development Programmes, Mentorship Programmes
Tier 3 of the ALP is designed to provide opportunities for a few students excelling in the field of computing to develop their talents. One such Talent Development Programme is the intensive training in preparation for the National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI).
National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI) 2022
NOI is a computing competition organized by National University of Singapore. It is an annual nation-wide programming competition that aims to provide our best students the ultimate challenge in computing and programming and is open to all current junior college and secondary school students.
In NOI 2022, seven Computing students represented the school in the competition. Aidan Ong, from class S4-NC (4B1), was awarded the Bronze Medal for his prowess in coding.
In addition, two other Clementeens were awarded the Certificate of Participation for solving some of the coding questions:
- Hu Bowen, S4-NC (4B1)
- Nguyen Viet Truong (Bill), S4-MM (4B1)
Computing Project
Computing students who were keen to work on a real-world computing project were given the opportunity to first identify an authentic problem related to their school experience and work on a solution to the problem.
Two of our students, Aidan Ong and Hu Bowen, have worked proactively and tirelessly to identify a specific area of need by the school, whereby students spend a significant amount of their recess and lunch periods queuing up to purchase their food, and developed a canteen queue wait time estimator, through the use of OpenCV for image processing and the YOLOv5 vision model, to programme a Raspberry Pi microcontroller with a video camera attachment to identify the number of students in a queue. Information from the microcontroller would then be transmitted wirelessly to a server through socket programming and a client-server architecture, which allows an estimated queue time to be shown on a screen.
Please click on the attached video below, to find out more about their project.
Participation in the Swift Accelerator Programme
The Swift Accelerator Programme is an intensive 180-hour programme in which students who are talented in coding are trained to develop iOS apps using the Swift coding language, leveraging on the principles of challenge based learning, storytelling and design thinking. Only 50 students, aged 13 to 15, are selected for this programme.
In 2021, two Clementeens have successfully completed the Swift Accelerator Programme. They presented their work at the Swift Innovators Summit Singapore 2022 on 16 March 2022, at Apple One North.
The students involved in the Swift Accelerator Programme 2021 are:
1. Nguyen Viet Truong (Bill), S4-MM (4B1), along with his teammates, have published an App called “StudyZone” which helps students manage their incoming schoolwork. You may download the app via this link: http://tk.sg/sis22-studyzone
2. Cheung Yi Kai, S2-MMS and his team mates from have published an App called “GPA Buddy” which helps students to set targets, calculate their GPA, and chart their learning progress. You may download the app via this link: http://tk.sg/sis22-gpabuddy
Participation in the First Lego League Competition
Students from the Multimedia Services Club, who showed an interest and dedication to robotics, had participated in the First Lego League (FLL) Competition 2021.This year, two teams from MMS took part in the FLL competition for the first time. One of the teams won praise from the judges for their creativity, understanding of robot mechanism, and applying sound concepts of Physics in designing their robot. They were also nominated for the “Rising Star Award” which is given out to schools participating in the tournament for the first time.
Industrial Visits and Learning Journeys
To expose students to STEM careers at an early age, Industrial Visits and Learning Journeys were conducted to organisations and STEM-related events.
1. Microsoft DigiGirlz 2019
2. Ministry of Education’s Experimental Systems and Technology Laboratory (MOE ESTL)
3. Visit to Google Office (STEM’IN with Google)
4. Visit to Anglo American (Chat with Data Scientist)
