Undergrad part-time field/lab assistants wanted (Apr – Dec 2013)

Update: Positions have been filled as of 8 May 2013. Thank you for your interest!

One or more part-time assistant(s) are required to help with experiments, sampling  and sample processing in Singapore reservoirs from April to Dec 2013.

PUB: Local Catchment Water

Project description: Sampling and processing of samples from Singapore’s reservoirs as well as subculturing and aiding in experimental work on cyanobacteria in the laboratory.

Job Scope

1. Work when needed on experimental days (every 2 days) and one full day for filtration of reservoir samples.
2. Most work will be conducted on weekdays, but some experimental collection days may be on weekends and public holidays
3. Filter water samples, record and weigh freeze dried water samples
4. Assist in collection of samples for experimental work in the laboratory as well as filtration of samples on weekdays or weekends.

Requirements

Candidates should be:

1. Meticulous and careful with samples
2. Be able to come into the lab on a need to basis.
3. Knowledgeable about phytoplankton and sterile techniques is useful, but candidates with no prior knowledge can also apply as training will be provided.

Salary

S$8.74/hour

Contact

Please contact Maxine Mowe, Graduate student, Freshwater and Invasion Biology Laboratory, Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore. Email: maxinemowe@gmail.com or call 6516-4255.

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Job opportunity: Help us out at the Comprehensive Marine Biodiversity Survey!

The Comprehensive Marine Biodiversity Survey (CMBS), is a  national project that takes stock of Singapore’s marine ecosystem and species diversity, species distribution and abundance. It began in 2010 and will conclude in 2015. Besides regular surveys, the project includes two intensive 3-week expeditions in which local and international researchers come together to study the various marine taxa found in our waters.

The first expedition surveying the northern shores (Johor Straits) was held in October 2012 and we are now gearing up for an encore in May, this time in the southern waters of Singapore.

Sorting!

We need help!

 

TMSI is recruiting four student assistants to help out during the Comprehensive Marine Biodiversity Survey workshop.

If you have a passion for biodiversity research, fieldwork, or just want to learn and interact with local and international marine scientists, this is a golden opportunity to garner the necessary experience.

Job Scope

The successful candidate will be involved in various aspects of the expedition, such as logistics, equipment cleaning and maintenance, field collection, dredging, sorting, preservation, photo taking, data entry and assisting researchers.

Candidates should be:

Be able to stay in expedition base camp (at St John’s Island) for the duration of the expedition (20 May to 8 June).

Enthusiastic and able to work well with others.No prior experience necessary, but that will be a bonus!

For more information please visit http://megamarinesurvey.blogspot.sg, in particular the posts about the Northern Expedition (http://megamarinesurvey.blogspot.sg/search/label/Northern%20Expedition#.USw0CaVvhtE)

Please contact Joelle Lai, Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research at dbslcyj[@]nus.edu.sg if interested.

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Announcing “Birds of NUS”, a resource for LSM1103 and LSM2251 students by undergrad David Tan

David Tan was a rabid birder before he came to NUS. In the LSM2251 Ecology and the Environment class, he was the hallelujah chorus, head nodding with enthusiasm about ecological perspectives. So it was really noticeable when he was missing in class, usually battling some last-minute assignment deadline.

He found an outlet for his enthusiasm about birds with an undergraduate research project (UROPS) with Richard Corlett, during which he evaluated distance sampling as a tool for population estimates of bird species in our NUS Kent Ridge Campus.

David guiding for Raffles Museum Toddycats during
the Festival of Biodiversity, 27 May 2012

I was one of his examiners and conducted his oral exam at University Hall Spinelli’s over coffee. The session lasted several hours, as I explored the depths of his observations of our campus birds in addition to the question he had addressed.

His report was a dry, colourless affair, satisfying page limits and academic objectives. But he had carried a load of equipment during his surveys, taking photos and identifying animals at point locations as well as estimating distance and had lots of useful information about individual species.

Represented graphically, could become a resource for students and the public alike – especially with the Kent Ridge being part of the Southern Ridges.

So he did just that before leaving for a year overseas and produced “The Birds of NUS” at nusavifauna.wordpress.com which includes a guide to identifying birds, artificial keys, a checklist and maps with point locations of observed species (may favourite bit). He roped in co-conspirator Zachary Kok, a Physics major who ‘authored more than 25% of the bird profiles’ on the webpage.

This is a resource for LSM2251 and now LSM1103 Biodiversity students as well. It’ll come in handy with younger students who work on mapping project with me in future too. Pretty neat, huh?

http://nusavifauna.wordpress.com

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Field experience in environmental biology – follow honours students into the field

Last year, I included this in an email to undergraduate students reading my modules about post-exam activities. The honours students are winding own their field trips but opportunities still exist.

They need help with small mammal work, wild pig and otter surveys, measuring trees and other help in the field. This is a great way for undergraduates to gain exposure to field work and learn about nature areas in Singapore as well as how science is conducted in the field.

This is pretty much how I got started, following a researcher in the field. It certainly opens up a world to you.

You can sign up here: http://tinyurl.com/hons-fieldwork
The honours students will contact you once you register.

Your participation is also an opportunity to establish your reputation as a field worker and of your reliability, which will be useful in future opportunities.

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Part-time student assistant help wanted for forest work with CTFS

The Centre for Tropical Forest Science, NIE/NTU has undergraduate student assistant opportunities. It’s a good way t get acquainted with the forest.

They say,

Have you ever…

• Wanted to learn about tropical biodiversity?
• Astound your friends with your awesome knowledge of forest trees?
• Know what foresters refer to when they say “SHORCU”, “SANTAP”, or “STREEL”?
• Learn field skills that can come in useful during the course of your studies?
• And better yet, to be paid for experiencing all this?

If you answered yes to any of the questions, then part-time work with staff of the Center for Tropical Forest Studies (CTFS) might be for you! You will…

• Measure and get to know many species of trees
• Carry out leaf litter studies
• Assist with long term plot-based studies
• Meet fellow ecologists

Contact Ngo Kang Min (ngokangmin@gmail.com) for details.

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A writing module recommendation for undergraduates – NM2220 Introduction to Media Writing

As Marcus’ honours year supervisor, I went through his thesis drafts and oral presentations to fine-tune the way in which facts and ideas were communicated. Happily Marcus had a decent grasp of effective writing and while edits were still required, we spent more time on ideas and discussions. His writing skill lessened his thesis burden considerably – just as well since he had to change his field site late in the year!

Now a graduate student, Marcus has TA-ed in modules I coordinate, LSM1103 Biodiversity and LSM2251 Ecology and the Environment. The fundamentals of writing are addressed in these modules with TAs marking twelve essays (1st years) and four reports (2nd years) to provide comprehensive feedback with detailed notes about improving writing. We discuss ideas during the post-mortem and I asked Marcus if NM2220 was a suitable recommendation as he had cited it a few times during our discussions about his thesis. After all that marking, he is ready to recommend the module and this will be forwarded to the 1st and 2nd years in our modules.

Posts by students for students can be viewed in the category students speak – N. Sivasothi

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Marcus Chua in his Halloween costume, 2009:
“A 10,000 word essay/assignment/thesis!”

In a recent blog entry, NUS Provost Tan Eng Chye highlighted the importance of English language proficiency and mulled over the decision to include compulsory communication modules in the undergraduate curriculum. You need not wait for that to become a reality, for Environmental Biology undergraduates, like all others in NUS, have the option of taking writing courses that may meet their needs. I highlight a module I took which I feel was very helpful to me in particular.

NM2220 Introduction to Media Writing is a basic writing module offered by the Department of Communications and New Media, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences that teaches students the foundation of writing for new and mass media. The skills taught are can be applied to everyday writing and communication. The course is taught by current or former journalists, editors or public relations practitioners and class activities and assignments consist of targeted writing exercises.

Before taking the course, I thought that good writing involved big words and long, complex sentences. The more, the bigger, the better! How wrong was I.

I took the module in my final year as an undergraduate in NUS and found it immensely useful, and it taught me how to adapt my writing for various situations. Some of the most useful tips were keeping writing simple for clear communication and how to write punchy sentences. There and then it hit me that using complex words might appear impressive to me, but it usually confuses the reader and impedes communication. The AP (Associated Press) style taught also has direct relevance to science writing conventions, e.g. when to write or spell numbers and correct punctuation.

All these newly acquired skills culminated in my thesis, which was a departure from most of my previous reports. Even after graduation, the lessons I learnt came in very useful for formal reports, various applications and when writing and editing the Singapore Biodiversity encyclopedia.

Since this is the time when most students would start planning their time tables for the upcoming semester, I would definitely recommend the course to all undergraduates.

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“All that glitters in not necessarily green” – Ong Say Lin’s essay in The Student Globe, Apr 2011

The Jakarta Globe started a new quarterly supplement in their newspapers, the Student Globe. Touted as ‘Indonesia’s first ever full-color English-language newspaper supplement just for high school students and their teachers’, it aims to bring about awareness about the environment.

Articles are welcome from young writers who would better connect with the students in Indonesia. Teachers are encouraged to use the Student Globe in their classrooms to improve students’ grasp of English language.

Ong Say Lin has been pursuing the Joint Minor in Environmental Biology at the University of Toronto this past academic year. Recently, through the suggestion of his friend Donna Tan in Global Initiatives, he submitted an article based on a topic he had previously discussed in his presentation about his experience working at Wong Siew Te’s Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre.

Passionate about wildlife and the environment, he observed the transformed, homogenous landscape in Malaysia as a young boy. He would later realise this was oil palm, and come to understand the implications.

Two weeks ago, the editors in the Jakarta Globe accepted the article and published it in Issue 2 (Apr 2011):

Click to see pdf

Isn’t that lovely news, that he has reached out to his peers in the region? Congratulations, Say Lin!

Ong Say Lin blogs at “Ecological Perspectives“.

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Goh Kai Ying on the SEP Experience at Auckland: Getting tough!

Student Exchange Programme
to University of Auckland, New Zealand,
July-Dec 2009

Being away from home for five months can be very daunting. It wasn’t just the mental challenges, it took my body quite awhile to adapt to the cold and dry climate of Auckland, New Zealand. Even as I reminisce about the ‘roughening and toughening’ I experienced, SEP was all worth while!

I began exchange experience with a week of getting and being lost. While my five NUS schoolmates had taken residence in the university hostel, I lived in the suburbs with a kiwi family. Getting home was tough as the bus frequencies and routes were all unfamiliar to me. So I spent that week taking the wrong bus, alighting at the wrong stop and missing the bus. With daylight hours in winter quite short and the streets not exactly exhibiting docile Singapore conditions, the fear of lurking bad guys triggered lots of adrenaline through my blood!

With familiarity though, I began exploring Auckland beyond school and home. Weekends became fun-packed short road trips to various towns on the outskirts of Auckland. But fun and danger always come hand-in-hand. Once up a ski mountain, Mount Ruapehu, my group of friends ventured beyond the training grounds to the higher ranges for a taste of death. The combination of poor control and bad brakes battered our heads and butts, but the domino effect ending with laughter.

Meeting and getting to know new people is an integral part of the exchange experience – package. There are unpleasant individuals everywhere, but the friendly ones do make up a fair share. It was the people who make the SEP really memorable for me and the best parts of my experience were the shared ones. In particular, I had my New Zealand family whom I bonded with and truly felt to be a part of. Those genuine feelings are hard to describe but priceless.

The SEP experience began from the pre-exchange period – when the financial issue finally surfaced, it was hard not to get worried. Fortunately, since the application for SEP was approximately a year ahead of actual travel, there was time to gather money – I did odd jobs which supplemented the support from a NASA award and my parents. Choosing exchange universities and mapping modules got really messy so I had to be alert and persistent. I decided to forgo the competitive and prestigious Universities for a less popular one. As a budding ecologist, nature was a much bigger draw than mappable modules, so New Zealand easily secured my vote.

My motto when it came to SEP then was, “Fun is primary, studying is secondary.” The pictures below provide a tip of the iceberg impression in describing Auckland’s wonderful outdoor classroom experience!

Goh Kai Ying,
Honours student, Marine Biology Lab, Department of Biological Sciences.

Morning at Milford Sound, Fiordland National Park

Yearly sand dune jumping competition at the geography 101 module field trip

Kayaking around the coastline of Abel Tasman National Park

To Harwoods Hole, Golden Bay

Glacier walking, Fox Glacier

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Trina Chua says of 1st year, “I was not prepared for such a stressful education in university.”

“Looking back at Year 1″
by Trina Chua,
Honours Class, 2009/10

“When I think of Year 1, I think of stress, stress and more stress. It has not changed much over the past three years but one thing has definitely changed – how I handle the stress.

Unlike many of my university peers, I did not take the conventional route of going to Junior College after my O Levels and then continuing to university. Instead I graduated from polytechnic and optimistically started the first day of school in NUS in August 2006. Optimism slowly faded away during the first lecture! The words in the lecture notes looked like Arabic to me and everything just seemed so new although the lecturer re-iterated during class that ‘all of you should already know this since you’ve studied it in JC’.

I started to panic. Not a day passed without me worrying about the various modules. The only thing that made me feel just slightly better was the fact that I was not alone. My friends in NUS and other universities were as stressed about school work as I was and in one extreme case, a friend quit university! Similar thoughts crept into my mind but I told myself to go on…you’ll get used to it!

My parents started to worry about me when they saw me taking one too many snoozes on the study table and looking weary too often. Basically, I was not prepared for such a stressful education in university.

But before I knew it, there I was, enjoying my Honours year, and grateful for not giving up in the first year. Honestly, it becomes wayyyyyyyy better after you pass the first year mark as you’ll get used to it! First year is the time when you adjust to the new environment and find out which is the best way for you to excel in your studies! Get yourself involved in extra-curricular activities to give yourself a break from work or you will just burn out.

Most importantly, although grades are very important, enjoy your university life!”

Trina Chua rescuing horseshoe crabs @ Mandai Besar mudflat, 07 Sep 2010

Trina did research work with mudskippers in her 3rd year, spiders in her honours year, played squash for NUS and after participating in several mangrove cleanups, became a Site Captain with the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore this year.

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Temporary job offer for undergraduate students: sorting arthropods

I am a postgraduate student from the Terrestrial Ecology Lab working on fig-fig-wasp mutualism.

Right now, I am looking for an undergraduate student to start work immediately to sort fig wasps from other arthropods such as ants, flies and spiders. You will be taught to differentiate fig wasps from other arthropods, so no worries there.

• Job: Sort fig wasps from other insects and clean them (they are covered in glue)
• Hours: Flexible
• Location: Terra Lab (S2-01-02)
• Wages: Standard hourly wages for part-time students assistants.

If you are interested, do drop me an email at g0700563@nus.edu.sg.

Thanks,
Nanthinee J.
Terra Lab, NUS

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