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  Channel NewsAsia 30 Jun 06
NUS conducts first Wild Biodiversity Field Study Camp for overseas students
 By Valarie Tan, Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE : 74 students from Shanghai are on a five-day field trip in Singapore to get closer to the natural world. Organised by the National University of Singapore, the study camp is the first ever conducted for overseas students.

Home to some 400,000 animal specimens, the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research is one of the oldest natural history museums in Southeast Asia. It is playing host for the first time to these inquisitive young minds from Shanghai Singapore International School.

Local scientists and researchers will guide the students during the trip and show them how different plants and animals grow and live in Singapore's climate. It is the first overseas field trip organised by the school.

Over the next few days, the students will go on treks to offshore islands and wetland reserves to learn more about the tropical environment of Singapore.

"A lot of them have never even seen the mangroves so they'll be able to look at the mangroves closely. Then the day after, they're going to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and they'll be able to feel how it's like to be in a low land rainforest because the climate is very different. It's very humid in the forest, there are a lot of trees everywhere. If you look up, you'll see plants, ferns, birds and if you look down, you'll see weeds undergrowths," said field trip guide Zeehan Jaafar.

"I look forward to seeing ecosystems that I'm not able to see in Shanghai. Though my family comes back once a year, but it's to visit relatives, not look at these ecosystems," said Singaporean student Daniel Kor.

The international students, who will also attend lectures by NUS professors at the camp, come from various countries like Japan, Korea and Indonesia. But they have made Shanghai home for the past few years. They have been receiving a Singapore-based education at the international school. - CNA /ls
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