Fostering Eco‐Awareness: A Sustainability Cat‐Venture in Changi Airport
Written by Teo Jia Xin and Wong Wai Cheng
Go Green SG 2024 featured a wide range of activities organised by over 180 partners. These activities have seen collaborations between partners from different sectors to inspire participants to foster a cleaner, greener environment. One such example was ‘Sustainability Trail @ Changi Airport’, a game designed through a collaboration between CHIJ St. Joseph’s Convent (CHIJ SJC), Changi Airport Group, and Hidden.SG, a local social enterprise. The five SJC students involved are part of the school’s Eco-Stewardship programme, through which the Ministry of Education aims to strengthen environmental efforts in schools, in line with the Singapore Green Plan 2030.
Participants, consisting of Secondary 3 Girl Guides, parents, teachers, and members of the public, embarked on an hour-long trail around Changi Airport’s Terminal 3 to learn about the airport’s sustainability features. With no human station masters in this self-guided, gamified trail, participants communicated with Hidden.SG’s interactive bot, Void Deck Cat, through WhatsApp to obtain clues and solve riddles.
Corresponding to different facets of sustainability, such as water, food, and waste management, each clue served as keys to six checkpoints around Terminal 3. For example, Void Deck Cat guided participants through the ‘Recyclaw’ game, where they played with a digital claw machine to obtain the answer!
After each correct answer, participants would receive a factoid on environmental sustainability to enrich their learning experience.
The clues and information in the trail were designed by a team of five Eco-Stewards from CHIJ St. Joseph’s Convent. The iterative design process saw the team refining the trail after pilot runs with fellow Eco-Stewards in the same school. They shared that not only did they learn more about Changi Airport’s initiatives, but they also got to hone their project management skills and teamwork.
Subject Head for Character and Citizenship Education, Miss Cheak Ching Hui, feels that this is an engaging way for students to learn about sustainability initiatives around them. She hopes this experience has raised their awareness of sustainability issues and inspire them to take action, starting with their everyday habits.
Other participants also gained valuable insights. Amongst the members of public who joined the event was university student, Goh Zhao Yuan, who found it heartwarming that young students are actively involved in planning sustainability-related initiatives.
In fact, game trails such as this are engaging for everyone, no matter young or old, to learn more about sustainability in our built environment and beyond. Let us all do our part to keep the environment clean, green, and sustainable for our future generations!