251011 – Civet Diet Talk at Raffles Girls’ School (Secondary)

Nearly 3 months ago, at the same time when my talk at Raffles Institution was fixed, I was invited to give a talk at my Alma Mata Raffles Girls’ School (Secondary) on their Research Showcase Day 25 Oct 2011. This was not like the other 4 talks that I have given because I was specifically requested to share more of my research experience such as the challenges that I faced and how I overcame them. The objective would be to enthuse the girls and make them interested in research which they will be given an opportunity to explore as they proceed to upper secondary.

Time flew past and as I returned from my trip to Indonesia, I began to prepare myself mentally as it would be my first time speaking to a large audience in an assembly hall. Also, I reorganised my slides with some advice from Siva and added in photos of my project which I thought may interest the 14 and 15 year old girls. Weiting has kindly lent me her slides which I used to introduce the common palm civet and her research work to the students while Marcus has kindly sent me some photos which I used to introduce other zoological explorations in Singapore.

This is the kind of talk that will make you excited but at the same time, lose sleep over (I really did not sleep much the night before).

On the actual day, I travelled to RGS armed with two honours posters, Weiting’s and mine. It felt great to be back and Ms Tan Beng Chiak was really kind to set up the remote control upon my request. Soon it was my turn to speak and I spoke! The girls responded to the little tip that Ron gave me after our civet recce the night before and the talk went well! I was really happy when I heard all the exclaims and discussions after the girls saw the different forms and colours that a civet poop may be.

Giving my talk to an audience of 800 RGS girls!

Common palm civet – the last wild native urban carnivore

Its research showcase day + house t shirt wearing day!

It was really an honour to be invited back to give this talk. I had a really great time and hope that the girls had learnt something new and maybe a few of them would go into mammal research and biodiversity conservation in future! A few girls came to talk to me after my talk! =)

Thank you Mr Joseph Toh and Ms Tan Beng Chiak for the kind hospitality and it was nice meeting Mr Lim Cheng Puay!

NCRT was at a campsite today to share our research findings with a group of 20 NIE student-teachers who have adopted the Musang Watch as part of their outreach project! The group is supervised by Vilma from NIE and Cicada Tree Eco Place who has helped me a lot for my civet diet research. We are very happy that this group of student-teachers is interested in increasing awareness of our last native wild carnivore to primary school children! We also have with us three friends – Huilian, Jun Hien & Ron!

Initially, a recce was planned to be conducted today, however due to miscommunication, we were unable to access the site. Not wanting to miss the chance to share our findings with the student-teachers, we made use of what we have around us – laptop and garbage bin (Ron’s creative idea). Thus, NCRT gave our talks to a group of 20 NIE student-teachers using a laptop on a garbage bin!

Civet girl sharing her research findings!

Civet POOP girl sharing her research findings!

The highlight of the evening has to go to the civet who visited a resident’s garden which got all the student-teachers excited! This is the first time they saw a civet. As we thought that we were probably not going to see any more civets, we suddenly smelt pandan (the civet anal gland secretion smells like pandan)! I jokingly said that the civet must have come to attend my talk on civet poop. It was indeed an unique experience for the student-teachers to smell the civet before seeing it.

While this recce trip did not turn out to be what we have expected, all of us had a great time learning more about the civet and seeing the civet! We also had a great catch up conversation with the residents there who have helped Weiting and I for our research projects! Vilma later told us that “They (the student-teachers) got to see a couple of musangs and to hear 2 great research studies presented from atop a garbage bin! Very unique!…”

We are looking forward to the actual event some time in November!

– As long as we have an interested audience, it does not matter where the talks were held!