LEARNING JOURNEY
WORLD AND ME
World and Me is a unique home-grown Special Programme that all our Integrated Programme boys undergo , and is also offered as an elective to boys from the ‘ O ’ Level programme .
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As a multi-disciplinary programme that prepares students to confront 21st century challenges through a systematic , structured reflection on global problems , students study global problems through the lenses of different academic disciplines , and in the process hone their critical thinking skills to arrive at a richer and deeper understanding of the underlying complexities and ambiguities . Students are also challenged to conceptualise and implement small but meaningful interventions that seek to address these global problems .
For this inaugural year , our Secondary Ones explored the issues of Food and Intellectual Property .
Food : Scarcity and Need Beginning with their individual or family food consumption habits , the boys proceeded to learn about the global nature of food production , supply , sale , and consumption . In school , through Biology , students learnt how to test for the presence of nutrients in food and about malnutrition diseases . They also learnt how to obtain and evaluate historical sources about the famine in Sudan and the food situation in Singapore during the Japanese Occupation by using the skills of a historian .
Beyond the classroom , our boys visited a butchery , vegetable farm , and the Singapore Discovery Centre . At the butchery , they were exposed to international sourcing of meat products ; at the farm , they were informed about some techniques for intensive vegetable farming ; at the Discovery Centre , they learnt about international trade and free trade agreements that allow Singapore to purchase food from a wide range of international partners . The boys also visited Siloso Beach Resort where techniques for urban vegetable farming as well as using earthworms for composting food waste were shown to them .
Intellectual Property — The Problem of Digital Piracy When exploring the issue of digital piracy , the boys started with their own involvement in the global piracy problem by examining the contents of their own computing devices such as laptops and smartphones . They employed their linguistic and argumentative skills in debating the ethics of digital piracy .
For their Action projects , the boys planned peer education campaigns to educate fellow Josephians about the issue of digital piracy .
Alumnus and intellectual property lawyer , Jevon Louis ( class of 95 ) from Rajah and Tann LLP was invited to address the boys on Intellectual Property .
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For their Action projects , some boys engaged in vegetable farming . Other teams encouraged school mates to participate in a day of fasting to understand what hunger really feels like . Another team mounted a campaign to collect food donations for food charity Food from the Heart .
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1 Before the implementation of the World and Me curriculum - one of the many planning meetings
2 The boys at SJI ’ s own rooftop farm learning about the growing of creeping plants 3 Eager to clarify about international sourcing of meat products
4 Josephians learning how mushrooms are commercially farmed