Organised by: Marine Conservation Group, Nature Society (Singapore)
Reported by: Zachary Chong, NSS Intern
This online event targeted for the young audience,
aged 5 to 16 that happened on 4th and 5th July, 2021 was organised by NSS
members cum volunteers, Lisa Lim and Cheryl Lao who are both passionate
educators. They wish to inspire young children and youths to become good
stewards of nature, hoping that the younger generation can be engaged through
such programmes. Lisa and Cheryl believe that these online sessions can spark
the young participants’ excitement and instill awareness about our marine
environment and biodiversity, encouraging them to care for wildlife and our
natural resources.
The event was organised on behalf of the Marine
Conservation Group (MCG), a Special Interest Group of the Nature Society
(Singapore), where Lisa volunteers actively and gives her support to marine
conservation works. In this event, young students who formed the panelists had
the opportunities to be engaged with marine experts from various disciplines.
The panelists impressed the audience with their knowledge on the various marine
topics presented and discussed with their outstanding conversational skills. A
total of 6 sessions in this series were organised and they focused on some
fascinating groups of marine animals - Seahorses, Sea Stars, Sea Anemones,
Giant Clams, Sea Turtles and Sharks.
Seahorse: 4 July 11AM-12 PM
This conversation was opened by Ms Sam Shu Qin (better
known as Sam), with a game - Seahorses’ Hide-and-Seek played with the three enthusiastic
young panelists. Sam is a marine biologist cum coral scientist who works at the
Reef Ecology Lab (NUS) and she engaged Zoe Chua (aged 9), Brendon Tan (aged 10)
and Aadya Kumar (aged 11) in this opening session of its series. From the
various photos presented in the game, it became apparent that seahorses were
amazing and brilliant masters of camouflage! Thereafter, the panelists answered
a variety of quiz questions by Sam, displaying their knowledge on the habits
and characteristics of seahorses. Other discussions included were about
seahorses’ hunting pattern, the function of their unique tail and the threats
that they face. The young panelists were asked if they would eat seahorses as
medicine, they replied with a resounding no. As our panelist Brendon aptly
commented, humans are the greatest threat to marine life like the seahorses. As
such, we should be more wary about our consumption of certain animal-based
products as well as the usage of non-biodegradable goods to prevent our seas
from further pollution that would harm these marine animals.
Sea Star: 4 July 1PM-2PM
This conversation on sea stars was led by trained
marine biologist and educator, Mr Chua Sek Chuan. He is the co-writer of Singapore
Waters - Unveiling our Seas, published by the Nature Society (Singapore).
In this session, Sek Chuan shared and talked about sea stars with Shavonne Looi
(aged 9), Tan En Qi (aged 9), Evans Woo (aged 10) and Wee Ying Le (aged 7).
Diving straight into the topic, he facilitated the discussion through guiding
questions and colourful images of the well-loved and fascinating sea stars.
Through those prompts, our young panelists were able to explore and talk on
various subjects on sea stars. They amazed the audience with fun facts and tidbits
on the tube feet of sea stars and further detailed the process of their sexual
and asexual reproduction. Sek Chuan also took the opportunity to touch on
the recent harvesting and inappropriate action taking place on Changi Beach by
uninformed members of the public, highlighting the need to protect our fragile
marine biodiversity. He emphasised that with increased visits to our shores,
marine life could suffer due to inappropriate handling, collecting and
trampling. Finally, as parting words, our panelist Shavonne made a passionate
plea for us to save the sea stars for our future generations.
Sea Anemone: 4 July 3PM-4PM
Dr Nicholas Yap is a marine scientist and taxonomist,
working on identifying the numerous species of sea anemones and jellyfish. In
this session, Nicholas, an educator at heart, engaged with Kieran Ang (aged
13), Evans Woo (aged 10), Shavonne Looi (aged 9) and Justin Lim (aged 14) on
sea anemones. He began by introducing the sea anemone and the organisms closely
related to it. Through an engaging set of slides, Nicholas detailed the wide
distribution of sea anemones and explained its importance to marine life. He
kept the conversation fun and lively with our panelists, introducing small
trivia facts about sea anemones. After Nicholas’ sharing, the panelists also
shared with the audience some other fun facts that they had researched and read
about. With references to the movie, Finding Nemo and the real life
example of the boxer crab, the young panelists explained the symbiotic
relationships that sea anemones have with other marine organisms. Nicholas then
shared interesting photos of some sea anemones that are found in Singapore,
including the recently discovered Synpeachia temasek, which was
discovered on the shore of Changi. Once again, he highlighted the consequences
of the lack of regulations and crowd control at these sites, which might render
finding more of such rare anemones rather impossible.
Giant Clam: 5 July 11AM-12PM
Dr Neo Mei Lin, a marine scientist at the St.
John’s Island National Marine Laboratory, who did research on giant clams,
briefly shared her experiences on breeding and reintroducing giant clams in
Singapore. In this candid session, Mei Lin (also known as the Giant Clam
Girl) engaged with Tiana Ho (aged 9), Wang Xinyu (aged 11), Samuel Low (aged 7)
and Justin Lim (aged 14) on the fascinating giant clams. By posing questions,
she encouraged active participation from the young panelists to share their
knowledge on these intriguing clams. Through the discussions, Mei Lin and the
panelists touched on the locomotion, distribution and threats to these clams,
among many other subjects. From their sharing, it became apparent that the
number of giant clams that survive to maturity is extremely low. Moreover, it
was learnt that out of the 5 giant clam species that used to be found in
Singapore, only 2 species remain - the Tridacna crocea and the Tridacna
squamosa. At the end of the conversation with the panelists, Mei Lin also took
some questions from the audience. Thanks to Mei Lin’s sharing, participants
understood the need to protect and conserve our marine spaces to protect such
vulnerable species.
Sea Turtle: 5 July 1PM-2PM
Ms Loh Junyi is a PhD student, currently working on
the eco-physiology of marine phytoplankton at the National University of
Singapore, Department of Biological Sciences. In this session, Junyi engaged
three young passionate sea turtle lovers; Tiana Ho (aged 9), Brendon Tan (aged
10) and Lim Kosei Miyano (aged 11). As an undergraduate, Junyi had the opportunity
to travel to Costa Rica and witnessed deluges of sea turtles coming to the
beach to nest. Upon sharing her valuable and memorable experiences on the
conservation works and monitoring these turtles on site, she kick-started the
panel discussion session with an ID game - Spot the Sea Turtles for the
panelists. The young students did well in the identifications, citing the
presence of flippers to be the main reason for their picks. They then proceeded
to talk and share about the importance of sea turtles, detailing how they act
as keystone species in the marine ecosystem. Through annotations, Junyi also
conveyed key concepts visually on how turtles lay their eggs inland. However,
sea turtles also face threats. Hatchlings use moon and starlight to navigate
back to sea. With the presence of artificial lighting near beaches and coastal
parks, especially in Singapore context, sometimes confused hatchlings navigate
to urban areas. Junyi closed the session by sharing on the local conservation
effort currently managed by NParks and encouraged everyone to call NParks’
hotline immediately upon sighting these hatchlings on our shores in hopes to
save and protect more of these endangered sea turtles.
Shark: 5 July 3PM-4PM
Dr Jerome Kok is an aquatic biologist who was deeply
fascinated about sharks during his internship to study them in South Africa. In
this session on sharks, Jerome engaged with Aadya Kumar (aged 11), Jorel Phua
(aged 11) and Kevin Pradeep (aged 8). Integrating his experiences in South
Africa with facts, Jerome showed photos and videos for many of the points he
discussed. His studies took place at Mossel Bay, where he came into
contact with the iconic Great White shark. From introducing interesting facts
about sharks like their countershading to the shark’s transitive diet and
unique dorsal fins, Jerome amazed the panelists and the audience with new facts
about sharks. Short videos of a pod of orcas inducing tonic immobility in a
shark intrigued viewers. Most only think of sharks as apex predators but little
do they know, sharks have predators too. Young Jorel is obviously a strong
advocator for “Say NO to Shark Fin Soup” and all three panelists are in
consensus that one of the greatest threats facing sharks is the demand for
their fins which led to wasteful and inhumane practice of shark finning. We
believe that growing demand for shark fin soup could possibly push our sharks
to extinction and in disrupting the eco balance of our oceans. Our young
panelists were extremely excited to engage more regarding these charismatic
creatures, especially Jorel who wanted the session to be extended so that he
could share more.
Through this iteration of the event “In Conversation
with the YOUNG MARINE BIOLOGISTS'', the audience were surely impressed by the teams
of enthusiastic young panelists. Their passion for marine biodiversity and
conservation as well as their diligence in researching and reading up on the
topics they have selected and subsequently assigned were simply inspiring. The
MCG is also grateful to all marine experts who took the time to prepare and
facilitate these online sessions. We would like to extend our thanks to
everyone who made this event possible, including the three awesome online hosts
- Yao Shuying, Dayna Cheah and Madeline Wong and those who worked behind the
scenes during the event. These sessions are also available for viewing on our
Nature Society (Singapore) YouTube channel.
Watch the Young Marine Biologists talk sessions on NSS's YouTube Channel here.