Pasir Ris Secondary School
390 Tampines Street 21
Singapore 529400

21 july 2008

Minister Mah Bow Tan
Minister of National Development, Member of Tampines GRC

Dear Minister Mah Bow Tan

Proposal on Upgrading Playgrounds in Tampines

Tampines is the largest residential area in the city-state of Singapore. It has expedited in the development of the infrastructure under your expert leadership. I am writing a letter to inform you my opinions on the current neighbourhood playgrounds. However, there are still ways for improvement in the playground development as these playgrounds did not fulfill the needs of terminally ill children.

Recently, students from Pasir Ris Secondary School were involved in such projects like creating a modified, environment friendly 3D model of a playground. We did some research on various playgrounds in Singapore and listed the features that they lack of. We realized that most of it does not cater the requirements of terminally-ill children.

In order to .....

to be continued...



Yours faithfully
Nurul Adilah Jumati
Student
Pasir Ris Secondary School






Pasir Ris Secondary School
390 Tampines Street 21
Singapore 529400

21 july 2008

Minister Mah Bow Tan
Minister of National Development, Member of Tampines GRC(Title)

Dear Minister Mah Bow Tan

Proposal to improve playgrounds in Tampines(Heading )

I am Kelly from Pasir Ris Secondary School. Living in Tampines for over 10 years, Tampines has prospered under your expert leadership. We are currently doing a project relating to the playgrounds in Tampines and found that the playgrounds are very colourful and aesthetically appealing. However, we also found out that the playgrounds in Tampines are not catered for the terminally ill children as it is too dangerous for them to climb about and there are little facilities for them.

My group and I have come up with a playground model to cater to the needs of the terminally ill children. Although it is specially made for terminally ill children, other children can also play in it safely. Also, while the terminally ill children can play there, they can interact with other kids and have fun. Our playground model is made based on the theme Bridge to Terabithia. We have improvised the idea to make it safe for all children especially the terminally ill. One of our ideas was to add a trampoline with a netting surrounding it so as to prevent children from falling out while having fun. There is also a slide so as to allow them to climb up and down the trampoline.
Many children nowadays do not go to the playground anymore as the facilities there seem to be old and boring. This applies to both the old and new playgrounds in Tampines. We added many creative ideas with the hope of making the playgrounds more fun so as to attract more kids. This will then make Tampines a much better place to live in. I hope that after reading,you will set aside some time from your busy schedule to consider my group's suggestion.

Yours Truly
Kelly Lee Jia Hui
Student
Pasir Ris Secondary School








Pasir Ris Secondary School
190 Tampines Street 21
Singapore 529400

21 July 2008

Minister Mah Bow Tan
Minister of National Development
Member of Tampines GRC

Dear Minister Mah

Proposal for the Upgrading of Playground Facilities

Under your expert leadership, Tampines has prospered and earned respect for it's fast growth. However, Tampines' well-varied playgrounds do not range enough for the emotionally or physically scarred children. The students of Pasir Ris Secondary have done projects to further improve the playground conditions of Tampines.

Our project is specially made to cater the needs for terminally-ill children. We were to construct a playground design and build a model of it. Our research has shown that children love to play in ball pits and colourful playgrounds, that is why our playground contains what they love. There is a wide-range of equipments available for their use which has been ensured or modified to suit them as they are more fragile. The equipments are user-friendly and only rubber flooring has been used to reduce the percentage of injuries.

The realisation of them not able to use our playgrounds made us venture on this project. Our playground has paid more attention to these children which need more encouragement. It is proven that they tend to be at ease if they are reminded of how other children have fun. We have stored crayons and paint which are washable and not toxic.

Thank you for taking the time to read our letter and we hope that you will consider our ideas.

Yours faithfully
Nur Khaliesah Bte Abdul Kepli
Student of Pasir Ris Secondary School








Pasir Ris Secondary School
390 Tampines Street 21
Singapore 529400

21 Jul 2008

Minister Mah Bow Tan
Minister of National Development, Member of Tampines GRC
_________________
_________________

Dear Minister Mah

Feedback about the playgrounds in Tampines and suggestions to improve them

I am a student from Pasir Ris Secondary School and I am writing this letter to give some feedbacks and suggestions on how to improve our current playgrounds in the Tampins neighborhood to meet the special needs of children. Under your expert leadership, Tampines has been a good place for living. There are lots of facilities close by like the MRT, shopping districts and good schools. As a child, I have always looked forward to the playgrounds. The playgrounds here are very colourful but I am writing to you to propose that you build a new playground meant for the special need kids here in our friendly neighborhood.

Our secondary two express students have just recently done a project whereby we create our own playground to cater to the special needs of different children, for example children who are diagnosed with terminally ill but non-contagious diseases. This is why we are proposing to you to consruct a playground as we are aware that there are alot of children who are diagnosed with such illnesses and thus we are to cater to their needs. The model of my group's plaground is cater to the above mentioned children and also based on the book Bridge to Terebithia which is a fantasy story.

Here are some of the ideas that we have come out with and that i think would be relevant for children in this neighourhood. One of the ideas is to construct the playground as a treehouse so that the children can get a feel of how its like to have a playground considering that we are not able to construct treehouses in Singapore. Another idea is to make a ball pit at the end of the slide so that the children will not fall hard on the ground and hurt themselves. It may seem a little dangerous as children might tend to crowd on the ball pit, so it can be replaced by a rubber mat. This way, they might not get hurt. You might also consider of making a giant trampoline with a netting around it so that the children will not fall off when playing. The purpose of the trampoline is so that the children can build their leg muscles by jumping on it with the knowledge that the children will not get injured when playing.

I hope that these suggestions are enough for you to consider making a new playground in our neighborhood for the children. Thank you for taking time off to read my letter.

Yours truly
Dayana bte Adly Esmadi
Student of Pasir Ris Secondary School






Dear Blog,






Eco-friendly features about my group's 3-D model

- Recycled materials like ice-cream sticks, Styrofoam, acrylics, old toys like trees, glue, scotch tape, and etc.
-Spend 15 bucks in buying items.


Playground designs/concepts that are linked to the novel and Explanation of how the designs/concepts are linked to the novel
- A tree house in the Novel, which also is similar to the one in Bridge to Terabithia.
- Ice cream sticks in building the bridge. Jess built the bridge in the novel.

Playground designs/concepts that meet the special needs of the children and explanation of how the designs meet the special needs of the children

-Our playground provides necessary playing equipment.
-The playground is covered with soft material as to endanger the child's fall.
-The playground will be colorful.
-. Rubber playground will be harmless to kids.

Done by: Arkar (17)
Class: 2E4






adilah's reflection; (13)


Eco-friendly features about my group’s 3D-model Remarks (e.g. materials to be used, relevant research with links, photograph links etc)




: We planned to use ice cream sticks as swings and the tree house

: We decided to use transparent acryllic as the flooring, merry-go-round and such

: We also used cardboard as slide and treehouse

: We used cardboard, toilet paper and satay sticks to create the trampoline

: Plasticine, balloon, strings, thumbtacks, plastic ball, etc.
Although most of our materials aint eco-friendly. Well, we did try our best making it as eco-friendly as possible.



Playground designs/concepts that are linked to the novel and explanation of how the designs/concepts are linked to the novel



: The flooring is decorated with a magnifying glass, leaves and such. This resembles the surrounding of Bridge to Terabithia, fun, adventurous and forest-like.
: The flooring is also made up of crayons as to show that Jess loves to draw.
: The treehouse is attached to a tree(like duhhh) which also is similar to the one in Bridge to Terabithia.
: In the novel, Bridge to Terabithia, there is some sort like a flying fox connected to Terabithia. Hence, in our playground, we painted the slide similar like a bridge and at the end of it there is a small ball pit. The link to it is that it is the passageway to fun and happiness.
: The roof of the treehouse is made up of a balloon that floats like a hot-air balloon so as to show that there is where imaginations can fly.



Playground designs/concepts that meet the special needs of the children and explanation of how the designs meet the special needs of the children

Terminally ill children are quite feeble. Hence, they need special needs and extra safety guards. Instead of sandpits, the flooring is made of rubber so as they will not get hurt severely when fall. The merry-go-round is improvised to a much safer one by adding both seats and safety belts instead of just handles. Benches are installed so as their caretakers can observe them and give proper attention for their childrens' safety purposes. There are also warning signs such as "Please fasten your seat belt" for the ill to be aware of.

nurul 'adilah binte jumati (13) :D

Labels: Reflection

KELLY :D

My group's 3D model has many eco-friendly features to save the Earth such as using bio-degradable materials such as the followings that i will tell you later on in the next category. Although we used old toys, coloured wires, acrylics, they are all old. So instead of wasting these materials and dumping them into the bin, we decided to use it for our project to make it more interesting, colourful and vibrant.

We spent a long time searching for the materials such as the acrylics. But of course, we tried to spend our time wisely and did all the needed researches during the computer lab periods in school.

Apparently, this are all of the materials that we used for the project. Listen Up .
-acrylics
-old toys ( trees )
-toilet roll
-styrofoam
-coloured wires
-ice cream sticks
-glue
-scotch tape
-tissue paper
-plasticine
-balloons
-plastic balls ( halved )

That's all for the materials i guess .

As for the playground designs, we made a treehouse, tyring our best to make it resemble the one in the story. However, we modified the treehouse such as adding balloons on top of it to make it more attractive. Furthermore, we made swings to resemble the one in the story. Unfortunately, the swing in the story is much to dangerous for the children, especially children with terminal illnesses. Thus, we changed it to a much more modern swing.

We all feel that our playground would be quite similar to the treehouse in the story, especially the swings, even though it is modified for the safety of the children.

We also made rubber floorings by using the acrylics to give it a smooth effect as we were not able to get real rubber.We also painted the playground with different colours so as to make it more colourful.

As we are catering to the needs of terminally ill children, we tried to think from their point of view decided to make 'rubber floorings' so that if they accidentally fall, it would be a softer landing rather than concrete. Also, the swings are made from plastic balls so that they would not be able to fall off easily.

That's all for my reflection, and of course, hope we will get high scores :)

KELLY LEE JIA HUI . no.3 . 2E4






Eco-friendly features about my group’s 3D-model
Our group tries to consider the 3Rs - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle - while planning on the materials needed to make our model. So we decided to use old recycled materials for example newspaper and such.
We would also try not to use a big amount of styrafoam as it may affect the ozone layer. (:

Remarks (e.g. materials to be used, relevant research with links, photograph links etc)
Roughly, the materials that we are going to use are :
- newspaper
- string
- twine
- carton box
- toilet paper roll
- styrafoam
- balloon
- cloth/ fabric
- sponge
- acrylic etc.

Playground designs/concepts that are linked to the novel and Explanation of how the designs/concepts are linked to the novel
At the end of the slide, there will be a ball pit. The ball pit will sort of resemble the river.
Our playground will also be like resembling the treehouse that Jess and Leslie made in Terebithia.
We also have used many ice cream sticks in building the playground. This is because of the forested area which was surrounding Terebithia in the novel. So the sticks resembles the eco surrounding. :D


Playground designs/concepts that meet the special needs of the children and Explanation of how the designs meet the special needs of the children
As the children are terminally ill, they might be weak. Thus, we have tried our best to plan the playground so that it is safe for the children to play in it. For example, we decided to use the rubber flooring as it is versatile, slip-resistant and tough. Thus the cildren won't get badly injured when they accidentaly fall down. Also the bottom part of the ball pit will be covered with soft spongy material so that the child's feet will not get cuts while playing in it. The seat of the swings will also be built with safety precaution taken fo example all for corners be closed so that the kids won't fall off.



Dayana bte Adly Esmadi (02) :D






Eco- friendly features about my group's 3D model.
: We try to reduce the use of styrofoam so as to decrese the amount of CFCs in the air.
We use recycled materials, to not increase the amount of litter on Earth.

Remarks(eg, materials to be used etc. )
MATERIALS TO BE USED FOR OUR 3D MODEL(roughly)
: Ice- cream sticks
Newspaper
Acrylic
UHU and AVA Glue
Scissors
Scotch Tape
Carton Box
Blu- tack
Toilet Paper Roll
Styrofoam
Decorative Wires
Toys
Plasticine
Balloons

Playground designs/ concepts that are linked to the novel & explanation of how the designs/ concepts are linked to the novel.
: We tried to make the treehouse resemble Jess and Leslie's treehouse as the one in Bridge To Terabithia. The colourful designs are to attract the kids and also, to describe the wonderful stories that Leslie wove and told to Jess.

Playground designs/ concepts that meet the special needs of the children & explanation.
: As our playground is made for the terminally- ill children, we have thought and planned carefully on what would be best for them. The colourful design is to make them forget about their illness and just have fun. Eventhough we want them to have fun, the playground is built with safety features that will decrease the risks of injury. The playground is laid with rubber, to make sure that the cildren will not be heavily injured. The swings have been altered to fit them.

Yeah. Muahuahua. Done by: the one and only Nur Khaliesah. (designer i/c) X)

We have decided on the real life thing for the plaground.

The floor of the playground will be covered with rubber flooring. This is to ensure that the kids won't get badly injured while playing at the playground as the rubbery flooring will be quite soft. And it won't hurt the child badly.

There will be a ball pit surrounding the playground. The flooring of the ball pit will be protected with spongy material also to ensure that the kids won't get injured while playing the the ball pit.

We will be putting up something similar to a flying fox. The "swing" will be tyre-like so that the kid will not be tired of holding on to the handle. Instead, he/she can sit down on the tyre while someone is pushing him/her.

There will also be a trampoline. The trampoline will be covered with a netting so that the kids won't fall off the trampoline while playing on it.

[will be updated later on because must go home alr lah. Haha]









The double swings will be a good equipment to foster friendship and to ensure safety precautions there will be safety belts placed.






Rubber flooring system




Affordable, versatile, slip-resistant and tough. Decostone Rubber Flooring was designed and developed to absorb shock, reduce noise and protect your floor as well as your equipment. Whether you have a home work-out room, or need an entire gymnasium resurfaced, call Decostone today. Protects against cuts, gouges and indentations while virtually eliminating the hazard of slipping due to dampness or perspiration.

Decostone Rubber Flooring is ideal for use at day care centers, playgrounds, indoor play rooms, and more.

KELLY :]






PIcture :


PLASTIC BALLS ALERT

Information :
place to buy = toysrus
price =$34.95
Amount=100 pieces in one zipper bag .
Recommended age = 2-5 years

KELLY :]






Our group have been progressing quite well for the past few weeks. The blog is still in progress. We've checked the prices for the materials and still evaluating which material is suitable for our model but still insecure of our design. We've shortlisted: styrofoam, toothpicks, straws, plastic bottles and such. Our project is going to be ready as soon we finish modelling, descripting and blogging. The blog will be completed with a few touch-ups and so is the descripting.

For the past three weeks we strived to do our best in the short amount of time given. Our design are specifically for patients suffering from cancer. Our objective of creating this playgound is for them to have simles on their faces when they leave.....



done by: URE'S SINCERELY ....KHALIS






Description

What are non-contagious diseases ?
Diseases that are not able to be spread from person to person. Genetic diseases, cancers, mental disorders, autoimmune diseases and heart disease are some of the many diseases that aren't contagious.

Subtypes of Non-Contagious Diseases:
Genetic diseases, Chromosome diseases, Cancers, Leukemias, Lymphomas, Autoimmune diseases, Physical diseases, Trauma, Fractures, Mental disorders, Emotional disorders, Psychological disorders, Psychiatric disorders, Metabolic conditions, Diabetes, Hypertension, Osteoporosis, Heart disease, Atherosclerosis, Hormonal conditions, Congenital conditions, Malnutrition disorders, Toxic exposures, Poisoning.

Treatments for Non-Contagious Diseases:
Find a Therapist or Health Professional
Buy Products Related to Treatments for Non-Contagious Diseases

Deaths from Non-Contagious Diseases:
Trauma
Fractures
Congenital conditions
Poisoning

Adapted from:
http://www.visualdxhealth.com/images/dx/webInfant/seborrheicDermatitisPediatric_18180_med.jpg

Thus, this will make us more cautious about the children with non-contagious but terminal diseases dos and donts.









This type of plastic balls will surround the the playground so as to ensure the safety of the children. As the balls are plastic, the children have very little risk of getting injured.

These are some of the websites which we will be considering for the plastic balls.

http://www.nextag.com/playground-balls/search-html

This is our literature blog for our Sa1 project. We are supposed to design and create a playground for the Non-contagious but terminally ill children. This blog has to be kept updated with research materials that have been done for the project or any latest drawings or sketches that had been done. Thank you and have a nice day. :D




Muhd Khalis (leader)
Nurul 'Adilah (secretary)
Kelly Lee (research i/c)
Dayana (builder i/c)
Nur Khaliesah (design i/c)
Arkar (presenter i/c)






designer:YVON
resources: images brushes texture fonts