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:

foster curiosity and creativity, and promote innovation in STEM
actively engage in problem-solving processes and apply investigative techniques
explore pursuits that spark interest in the Digital and Green Economy
establish meaningful connections between different subjects and grasp the practical significance of STEM and Emerging Technologies
cultivate 21st-century competencies through authentic experiences 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.

ALP Day

Our ALP Day was held on 21 May 2024. With the theme of "Making Learning Come Alive for You", the event kicked off with a Space Exploration Workshop by former NASA Astronaut, COL (Ret) Dr Jeff Williams, who shared his fascinating experiences and challenges of living in space.

Together with Dr Neo Kok Beng from Neo Aeronautics, he answered many questions from our inquisitive Clementeens about space exploration in a Q&A session.

Break-out Sessions

Following the Space Exploration Workshop, our Secondary 2 students were engaged in four different STEM Experiences:

Showcase of outstanding and innovative MARS projects
STEM Escape Room Experience
Drone Workshop
Cybersecurity Workshop

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 Science-in-Action Research Mentorship Programme, AI for Youth Programme, AI for Everyone Programme and Computing Talent Development Programme.

Science-in-Action Research Mentorship Programme

Who are we?

A research mentorship programme that cultivates Sec 2/3 students the spirit of inquiry
Students will work on a year-long research project under the mentorship of a teacher or an expert from tertiary institutions.
Throughout the project, students will engage in hands-on laboratory experiments and delve deeper into theoretical aspects of biology that go beyond the typical school curriculum
Students will also share about their project in various competitions, such as the Singapore Science and Engineering Fair (SSEF)

Our Objectives

To foster effective science communicators through active engagement in scientific events, to bridge the gap between the scientifically trained and non-trained
To cultivate scientifically literate students with practical scientific reasoning skills
To develop critical and creative thinking by engaging students in solving authentic problems using various methods
To guide students to work collaboratively and learn scientific techniques under respected mentors

What do we do?

Our Projects

Where have we been?

Computing Talent Development Programme

Students who have displayed an interest to explore AI and Computing-related activities at a deeper level would be given the opportunity to participate in Workshops, Enrichment Courses and Competitions, such as exchange programmes, the National Olympiad in Informatics, AI for Youth Programme, AI for Everyone Programme and Computing Mentorship Programme.

Our Objectives

To develop deep mastery and ethical and productive use of Technology.
To expose students to Computing at a deeper level, focusing on solving real world problems and gain a deeper appreciation and application of emerging technologies.
To provide students with the opportunity to identify authentic problems and apply Computational Thinking and coding to iteratively find suitable solutions to the problem

CTSS-HCI Computing Exchange Programme

Seventeen Secondary 3 Clementeens participated in the Clementi Town Secondary - Hwa Chong Institution Computing Exchange programme from 13 to 15 May 2024. During this workshop, our students learnt Ehical Hacking while establishing collaborations with their peers from Hwa Chong Institution.

National Olympiad in Informatics (NOI) 2024

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 2024, seventeen Computing students represented the school in the competition, with six students making it to the Final Round. Nguyen Chi Kien, from class S4-DC, was awarded the Silver Medal for his prowess in coding.

Computing Mentorship 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.

Among the projects created by students are:

AI Facilitated Recyclable Sorting Machine

Three of our students, Khor Ize, Vernice Chin Xingnie and Xu Ruixian developed a machine that leverages on AI to identify recyclable materials and activate robotic swivel arms to place the materials in the correct collection bins.

AI Facilitated Automated Tchoukball Scoring System

Three Clementeens, Abhimongkol Teeraphapphun, Nguyen Chi Kien and Nguyen Dai Duong pursued their personal interest in Tchoukball and AI and built an automated Tchoukball scoring system.

AI Facilitated Queue Time Estimator

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.