EDUN N25-02-004

24 Nov 99

NINE SINGAPORE STUDENTS EMERGE AS AWARD WINNERS IN 1999 THINKQUEST INTERNET CHALLENGE

Nine Singapore students won awards in the recently concluded 1999 ThinkQuest Internet Challenge. ThinkQuest is an annual international web-based design competition. This year, the competition attracted over 6700 students from 78 countries. A total of 476 Singapore students participated in the competition. Singapore has the largest number of participants after the United States.

2. The nine Singapore students are in 7 teams out of a total of 26 finalist teams. They were invited to present their entries to the ThinkQuest judges and also attend the Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, USA from 19 to 22 November 1999.

3. Our Singapore finalists impressed the judges with their creativity and IT knowledge and the results of the competition are a testimony by itself. The nine students clinched 1 Platinum, 2 Gold and 4 Silver awards (the information on the awards is at Annex). The students and the composition of their teams are as follows:

Galvin Sng of Hwa Chong Junior College

Title of entry: "ES2000 – Endangered Species of the Next Millennium"

Award: Platinum - First place in the Social Sciences Category

Web address: http://library.advanced.org/25014/

Team mates: Helen Cheng of United States of America

Zane Amiralis of Netherlands

Watson Teo of The Chinese High School

Title of entry: "The Asian Century : Paths to Power"

Award: Gold - in the Social Sciences Category

Web address: http://library.advanced.org/26638/

Team mates: Xian Ke of United States of America

Yosun Chang of United States of America

Chen Kaijie of Anderson Junior College

Title of entry: "Colour My World"

Award: Gold - in the Interdisciplinary Category

Web address: http://library.advanced.org/25782/

Team mates: Onno Faber of Netherlands

Rachel Grotsky of United States of America

Jason Yeo of Raffles Junior College

Janine Yeo of Raffles Girls’ School - Secondary

Title of entry: "The Passing of a Century"

Award: Silver - in the Arts and Literature Category

Web address: http://library.advanced.org/27629/

Team mates: Sizwe Ngcobo of South Africa

Farhan Ahmed of National Junior College

Kumar Gaurav of National Junior College

Title of entry : "The Man – The Mahatma"

Award: Silver - in the Arts and Literature Category

Web address: http://library.advanced.org/26523/

Team mates: Kartik Mudaliar of India

Farhana Chew of Raffles Girls’ School - Secondary

Title of entry : "Through the Wires : A Century of Telecommunications"

Award: Silver - in the Science and Mathematics Category

Web address: http://library.advanced.org/27887/

Team mates: David Dowling of Canada

Tiana Lucie of Dominican Republic

Ricky Chang of The Chinese High School

Title of entry : "Radical Times : The Antiwar Movement of the 1960’s"

Award: Silver - in the Social Sciences Category

Web address: http://library.advanced.org/27942/

Team mates: Joyce Demonteverde of United States of America

Dilip Biswal of United States of America

4. Launched in the United States in 1995, ThinkQuest was opened to international participants in 1997. The Ministry of Education took on the role of National Partner for ThinkQuest in Singapore in 1998. The ThinkQuest programme was created by Advanced Network & Services (ANS) Inc based in USA, with the intention to help equalise educational access to technology through a collaborative model for learning and teaching.

5. ThinkQuest challenges school students aged 12 to 19 with diverse backgrounds to collaborate over long distances, in creating high quality educational tools that take advantage of the strengths of the Internet. Since its launch, more than a thousand content-rich, interactive educational sites have been created and made available to students and teachers world-wide via ThinkQuest´s web site at   http://www.thinkquest.org/.

6. 1999 is also a significant year for MOE as it launched its Singapore ThinkQuest Junior for 9 to 11 years old on 13 November 1999. Ninety-eight primary schools attended the launch, which was officiated by Mr Tan Yap Kwang, Director of Educational Technology. Singapore ThinkQuest Junior is a joint effort between ANS, MOE and MediaManager, and the objective is to encourage children to design and create educational web sites. Application to take part in the national competition will be closed on 15 March 2000 and deadline for entries submission is 30 June 2000.

More details about ThinkQuest could be obtained at the following websites :

Singapore ThinkQuest Junior web site at http://thinkquestjr.educast.com.sg/

ThinkQuest (US) web site at http://www.thinkquest.org/

ThinkQuest (Singapore) web site at http://www1.moe.edu.sg/thinkquest/

  Annex

Information on ThinkQuest Internet Challenge Awards

There are three award levels, Platinum, Gold, and Silver, in each of the five categories, namely Science & Mathematics, Arts & Literature, Social Sciences, Sports & Health, and Interdisciplinary. One to three winning teams will be selected for each award level in each of the five categories. The awards are:

The Platinum Award:

The Gold Award:

The Silver Award: