It allows you to have a hands-on experience in posing geographical questions, conducting fieldwork, and presenting and analysing data.

• explore and learn about living in a neighbourhood,

• discover why certain amenities in a neighbourhood are used more than others, and

• uncover how the provision and use of these amenities impact residents and the environment.

This will in turn enable you to develop solutions and take appropriate actions to maintain or improve people’s quality of life, as well as the quality of the environment.

For example in Sec 1, you discovered the impacts of human activities on tropical rainforests, and issues related to them. You also studied the movement of water in the hydrological cycle, the pollution of water bodies, and issues related to them. All these are geographical phenomena which can be investigated through GI, as we will do so here with the Sec 2 topics.

A GI has 5 stages which are shown in the diagram above.

These amenities may be grocery shops and clinics, as well as spaces for social gatherings like community centres and playgrounds.

While these amenities have been put in place for the benefit of the community, they can actually both positively and negatively affect people and the environment. 

With limited land space and a growing population, it is crucial to manage Singapore's housing situation well in order to ensure sustainability for our future generations.

For this particular GI, your group will select one study area. Some examples of what a "Study Area" may mean in the north-east part of Singapore are shown below.

Your group may choose other study areas, as long as at least one group member stays in that area.

• The people using the amenities

• The activities occurring at the amenities

• The impact of these activities on people and the environment.

You may then use methods such as 5W1H to further break down the above areas into guiding questions.

For example, to find out more about the people using the amenities, your guiding question may be "Who are the people using the amenities"?

This guiding question can then be used to come up with specific survey questions (more on this later in Section 2c).

Share the file with your groupmates, and also with teo_huai_wei_edmund@moe.edu.sg

This document will be used to record your investigations and will be submitted as part of your WA work. Your teacher may decide to use alternative apps for this purpose.

Start your slides by including the information from the tasks below, ie: names of group members, chosen study area (you may copy the map into your slides), and the specific location of your chosen amenity (you may indicate on the same map, or on another map).

For your groups. Each group should have 3 to 4 students. Select your roles for each member and update in the slides.

Task 2:

In your groups, decide on one study area as described in the "Study Area" section. Copy the Google Map screenshot of your Study Area in the next slide.

Task 3:

As a group, identify one amenity that your group would like to investigate. Take note that amenities are structures which can be used by the community, but do not include infrastructure or general residential and industrial-related land-uses.

• Examples of acceptable amenities include parks, shopping malls, schools, basketball courts, convenience shops, fire stations, hospitals, police stations, etc.

• Examples of infrastructure which are not accepted include bus stops, traffic lights, bridges, link-ways, shelters, etc.

• Examples of general land-use which are not accepted include housing (eg: HDB blocks, condos, etc) and industrial (eg: factory).

Check with your teacher if your chosen feature is suitable before proceeding.

If there are several of the same chosen amenity in your study area, decide on one specific amenity for this GI. Eg: if your group chose schools, please choose only one school to investigate.

However, how confident are you that your findings are accurate? Did you encounter any difficulties while carrying out the GI which may have affected your findings, and which you could have avoided? What else can you do with your findings?

A fruitful and effective GI would not be complete without reflecting on the process and taking action to change or improve the situation that you were investigating with the help of your findings!

Although you could simply describe what you did or felt during each of the GI stages, it would be more useful to ask yourself the questions listed above after completing each GI stage.

If you are able to answer these questions honestly and without being influenced by your own opinions, you could potentially gain valuable insights which will help guide you to make further improvements the next time around.

We can go one step further by coming up with an action plan based on our findings. This action plan can involve efforts to change or improve the issue, phenomenon or problem that we had been investigating through the GI.

We should use the data that we collected and analysed during the GI to inform and justify our action plan.

When coming up with an action plan, you may ask youself the following questions:

• what objectives do you wish to achieve?

• what steps do you have to take in order to achieve those objectives?

• who will be involved and/or will benefit as a result?

• which steps are more important and should be taken first?

• what will you do if your original plan is unsuccessful?

Your Task

Write a personal reflection comprising of the following:

Part 1: Post-GI reflection

Think about the tasks you have completed and reflect on these procedures using the following questions to help you:

• What are the strengths of my group's investigation methods?

• What are the limitations of my group's investigation methods?

• What are the ways you can improve your investigation methods?

NOTE: you are to judge your GI based on the GI methods. For example,

• your choice of study area and survey location(s),

• the timing(s) and frequency of your survey,

• your choice of survey questions, your data presentation methods, etc.

You do not discuss about non-GI issues such as

• your time management (eg: we should have started earlier),

• group management (eg: some of our group members did nothing),

• personal skills or human emotional issues (eg: Our strength was we were confident in talking to strangers), etc.

Part 2: Taking Action

Use these questions to help you come up with an action plan based on your research and conclusion:

• Based on your findings, write an evidence-based conclusion (you may refer to template shown in Stage 4).

• Based on your conclusion, what aspects of the amenity in your study area needs improvement? Describe and explain.

• What original ideas can you suggest to bring about the improvements that you identified? Describe and explain.

Take note of the following requirements:

• Word limit: Between 100 to 200 words (G2) / Between 200 and 300 words (G3), excluding text in diagrams, tables, and references.

• You can include non-text elements like pictures, diagrams, etc, but do not include videos.

• If you referred to any other source for information, then include a reference list.

• You have two submission options. Either:

  • Use the same Google Slide file and add slides for each individual reflection. You can use more than one slide for each reflection.

  • Submit your reflection separately using either Powerpoint/Google Slide or Word/Google Docs. Your teacher will give you specific instructions if you prefer this option.

1. Maps

2. Tables

3. Bar graphs

4. Line graphs

5. Pie charts

6. Annotated field Sketches and Photograph

It is important to choose an appropriate method to present your data, as doing so will aid you greatly in meaningfully describing, analysing and explaining the data that you have collected, in order to draw accurate conclusions in Stage 4 of the GI process.

These are some guiding questions that may help us when analysing the data collected that we have presented in a graph:

• What are the highest and lowest average values? What are the possible reasons for these?

• Are there data that stand out or are anomalies? Are there any reasons why?

• What do the results tell us about the features and their impact in your study area?

• Using the data you have gathered from Stage 2, plot two separate graphs to represent your most important findings in order to answer the inquiry question.

• You must use two different types of the following graphs types only: Bar graph, line graph or pie chart. Choose the most appropriate type for representing your data. You can do simple or multiple bar/line graph if you wish (google for more information).

• Make a decision if you need to do any calculations first before plotting your graphs.

• Make sure your graphs includes all necessary graph elements.

• Use the 'Chart' function in Google slides to produce your graph.

• Alternatively, you can either construct the graphs using other computer software, or manually plot them on graph paper and take photographs/scan them.

• Add each graph on one Google slide, so there should be a total of two slides for this task. Add these slides to the back of your existing Google Slides after Tasks 1 and 2.

A conclusion is a judgement or decision about something that you have reached in a logical and sensible way, based on your findings.

You may refer to this template to help guide your response if needed.

Recall what a survey involves (from Stage 2a):

• A set of pre-planned questions that you come up with in order to gather data about people's opinions and behaviours.

• Survey questions can be asked verbally, or the respondent completes the survey on their own.

• Most questions are closed-ended with a few open-ended questions.

Multiple Choice

Respondents are given several options to choose from. They may need to make one choice, or you can give them the option to select more than one choice.

For Eg:

Which are the method(s) you used to get to school? Choose all the options which apply.

• Walking

• Bus

• MRT/LRT

• Car

• Taxi / Private hire

• Others (state method: _______________)

Yes/No

It involves questions which only require a yes/no answer. It can also be "true/false".

For Eg:

The school is within 5kms from my home.

• Yes

• No

Ranking

Give a range of options from respondents to rank using a clear criteria (eg: rank favourite colours, rank based on prices of dishes in canteen, rank based on popularity of a pop star). Make sure you clearly state how it should be ranked (eg: lowest to highest, or the other way round? Indicate "1" for the highest, or lowest?)

For Eg:

Rank the following subjects in terms of how well you do in them in your recent WA. Indicate "1" for the subject you did the best, and "4" for the one you did worst.

• English language [Ranking: ]

• Mother tongue language [Ranking: ]

• Mathematics [Ranking: ]

• Science [Ranking: ]

Rating

Respondents rate each item on its own. You must clearly tell the respondent how the rating is to be done.

For Eg:

On a scale of 1 to 4, indicate how often you buy from the following canteen stalls. Indicate "1" for very often, "2" for often, "3" for sometimes and "4" for seldom. If you never purchased from a stall before, indicate "Nil".

• Drinks stall [Rating: ]

• Noodles stall [Rating: ]

• Economy rice stall [Rating: ]

• Korean food stall [Rating: ]

• Muslim food stall [Rating: ]

• Vegetarian food stall [Rating: ]

Eg: Why do you prefer to take the bus?

• What is the purpose of your survey and interview?

• What kind of relevant questions should you ask?

• Can my questions cause offence or a misunderstanding?

Considerations when structuring your survey and interview questions:

• Keep the survey short. Preferably 10 questions or less.

• Use simple and clear language.

• Consider having multiple language versions.

• Each question should only ask for one piece of information.

• Begin with close-ended questions (E.g. information about the respondent) and end with open-ended questions.

• Start with simple questions that will gradually lead on to more specific and complex questions.

Part 1 (assessed) 

Come up with questions for a survey with the help of the guiding questions (see Stage 1b). Make sure your questions covers all three areas (people, activities, impact) sufficiently.

Take note of the following requirements:

• Come up with 10 questions for your survey.

• Between 2 to 3 of these questions must be open-ended questions. The rest will be closed-ended questions.

• There should be different types of closed-ended questions (multiple-choice, yes/no, ranking, rating, etc)

• Follow the considerations when crafting the survey (eg: length, sorting, etc).

• You can either:

  • Create the survey in Google Forms, then insert the link into your Google Slide file, or

  • Add your survey questions directly in the Google Slide file. You may spread your questions over several slides.

Each group is to show your first draft to your teacher by a deadline they set. Your teacher will give you feedback to improve your survey only once.

Your work will then be graded.

Your teacher may give more suggestions after this, but any further changes from now will not influence the score for this task. You will proceed to conduct the survey only after your teacher has given permission to do so.

Part 2 (to be assessed in Stage 4) 

Before you proceed, you must:

• Decide the specific location(s), frequency, day(s) and timing of your survey.

• Decide on your sample size (minimum 3 persons per group member).

Share your decisions with your teacher first before you proceed to avoid wasting your effort and having to redo your survey.

Important: During your survey, you must take at least four photos or videos as evidence that the survey was actually conducted. Ask for permission from the public first before taking these photos or videos.

Include these photos and/or videos in your Google Slides.

Hence we do it as it is:

• More practical and feasible to accomplish

• Less time required

• Less manpower required

For example, if you approach the nearest passers-by outside a busy supermarket to answer your survey, you would be conducting convenience sampling.