As part of your school’s efforts to educate students about the environment, you and your classmates will be going on a learning journey to Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve during the December holidays. As the environmental champion of your class, write a proposal to your Class Mentor recommending activities for your classmates to participate in during the outing. Your Class Mentor has requested that the activities chosen should help to increase the students’ awareness about environmental issues.
In your proposal, include the following:
- two activities from the brochure that will interest you and your classmates
- one other activity, not shown in the brochure, that you and your classmates will enjoy
- how these activities will benefit you and your classmates
Write your proposal in clear, accurate English and in a persuasive tone, to convince your teacher of your choice of activities.
You should use your own words as much as possible.
26 October 2019
Attention: Mr Sean Chua
Principal, Everhappy Secondary School
Dear Mr Chua,
Proposal on Three Activities for the Learning Journey to Sungei Buloh
I am Anne Tan, the environmental champion of 3A. I am writing a proposal to you to recommend three activities that our class can participate in the upcoming learning journey to Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve during the December holidays. The three activities are Mangrove Clean-up, Mural Paintings and Photography Workshop, which will allow us to take photographs of the wildlife and learn more about the different ecosystems in Singapore. As we all know, Singapore is home to a large number of animals and plant species which can be found in their natural habitats. Be it a dry land tropical rainforest, mangroves or a coral ecosystem, there is a rich biodiversity to be found in our City in a Garden. Especially in Sungei Buloh, there are a total of more than 390 species of birds and at least 2,100 nature vascular plants, of which more than 1,500 species are classified as extant in Singapore.
Firstly, one of the activities that I would like to recommend is the Mangrove Clean-up. Mangrove trees help prevent erosion by stabilising sediments with their tangled root systems. Usually, a large amount of human waste will get tangled to the roots that look like an octopus’s tentacles. When we take part in cleaning up the mangrove bed, we could prevent inedible man-made waste such as plastics and foam pieces from getting ingested by the mangrove animals. At the same time, we will be able to meet some of the 3,500 volunteers from 70 different organisations who work along the Singapore shorelines. Yearly, they remove more than 18,000 pieces of trash in 2,200 trash bags weighing about 16,000kg. As a class, we will be excited to make friends with like-minded volunteers while soaking in the beautiful sights of the coral reefs and sandy beaches in Sungei Buloh. In addition, this activity will shape us into responsible citizens in keeping Singapore clean and imbue in us a sense of accomplishment when we have successfully achieved our environmental goals. Furthermore, we will be able to learn about the diversity of marine life and their special characteristics through the guided tour by experienced park rangers. For example, we will learn the reasons behind mangrove roots’ resistance to rot and insects and their wondrous medicinal value. Therefore, I highly recommend our class to take part in this enriching Mangrove Clean-up activity. Only by conserving this ecosystem will we be able to ensure that the future generations could enjoy this valuable resource.
The next activity that I would like to recommend is Mural Paintings as it promotes mental health by fostering creative growth. As most of our classmates are analytical left-brainers, painting can help us master the three different skills that are useful for our studies – practice, focus and creativity. In addition, painting builds our problem-solving and motor skills by engaging us in conceptual thinking where we explore the different ways of conveying our feelings and thoughts through the painting of tiles and clay. Our vision also evolves during the painting process where we will get to build important problem-solving skills, like thinking outside the box. In fact, this activity is interesting because painting helps students to develop a better understanding of their varied emotions like happiness, sadness, love and anger that plagues them like a disease. Most importantly, we will be able to display our painted tiles of flora and fauna as part of the shelters along the visitor centre mangrove boardwalk, which will be a unique and rare experience for us in our daily life. Thus, I highly recommend our class to participate in the Mural Paintings activity.
Finally, the last activity that I would like to recommend is the Photography Workshop in Sungei Buloh which offers exquisite sights and the most majestic displays of nature. This activity allows us to capture the glorious resplendence of nature and preserve the beauty of the lush greenery with the click of our shutter. While strolling along the boardwalk, we can observe the wildlife with a careful eye. We might even be able to snap a picture of the shorebird such as storks around the mudflats or even mini war between the territorial male mudskippers. Since we are traveling to Sungei Buloh during the December holidays, we will be able to witness the biodiversity of species living together in harmony as it is during the bird migratory season.. This activity will definitely enthuse the budding photographers among us as we rarely get to go out of class during our biology lessons to have a close-up view of the amazing species such as banded woodpeckers, clouded monitor lizard, drongo and plantain squirrel. Better still, we might even capture a prized photo souvenir of the rare oriental Pied Hornbills. Coupled with that, we can climb the Tower Hide in Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve for a panoramic view of the forest canopy and learn more about the diverse species rather than merely studying them from our textbooks. Thus, I would highly recommend our class to take part in photography as we can learn a new skill while being closer to our natural environment.
All in all, I highly recommend our class to partake in these three meaningful activities: Mangrove Clean-up, Mural Paintings and Photography Workshop. The term “Biophilia” is now commonly used to described our attitude towards our environmental, which refers to the human relationship with nature which generally corresponds to effectively incorporating nature into urban environments like Singapore. As the younger generation of Singapore, we can contribute to the national vision through these activities as they help to raise awareness among us about Singapore’s new direction towards building a City in a Garden. Thank you for providing me this opportunity to suggest these three activities for the learning journey. I look forward to your favourable response on my proposal.
Yours sincerely,
Anne
Anne Tan
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