On Friday, 13 November, Grade 5 students welcomed a group of experts from our community to a “Lifestyle and Learning Fair”. The Lifestyle and Learning Fair was divided into three categories of workshops: the brain, health and fitness, and lifestyle and environment. After choosing different presentations to attend, one from each category, students rotated through the fair’s sessions listening to and gaining a deeper understanding about how they learn.

Among the presenters were Grade 5 parents, CIS PE specialists and three health and fitness experts from UFIT, a local community fitness provider. Each presenter shared information on how lifestyle, the environment, and fitness can impact an individual's learning in various ways. In conjunction with the current Unit of Inquiry, “Who We Are”, students are learning about how developing different perspectives is necessary to become better learners.

Highlight of presentations

Zoe Bichler, PhD, Neurologist and CIS parent, helped the students get up close with brains! Dr. Bichler shared information on brain disease and demonstrated a malfunctioning brain in order to let us understand how a healthy brain should work. Students looked at mice neurons through a microscope, and learnt how we use neurons for memory and movement. Another neurologist CIS parent, Joy Vijayan, PhD showed us the capabilities of our fascinating brains. Students got a close up look at the inside of the brain via a special model brought by Dr. Joy from NUH.

A Sensory Scientist and CIS parent, Antonella Scarabelli, talked about how our five senses worked with lots of examples on how our senses influence our choices and decisions.

Tom Clarke, a Personal Fitness Coach, focused on the role of exercise on our long term health, wellbeing, learning, and movement. Students got active as they tried a variety of brain stimulating movements.

Meagan Douglas, CIS PE teacher and fitness enthusiast posed the question, “Is physical endurance all in the mind?” During her talk, students discussed real life examples and whether these ideas can be applied into our daily lives (in school and other activities).

Stephanie Dalsey, a Children's Yoga Instructor from UFIT conducted a practical session, where students learnt about the importance of yoga and the benefits yoga provides.

Lara Rath, CIS parent and manager of Secondsguru environmental website, encouraged students to give Planet Earth a second chance. They discussed ways we can be proactive and start using our brains to reduce our carbon footprint today!

Theresa Sliworsky, Food Industry expert and CIS parent, shared with students the difference between healthy food vs. processed food and the carbon footprint created as food is packaged and imported to Singapore.

Scott Polkinghorne and Christopher Brown, our CIS 5th Grade PE specialists and coaches, conducted some practical exercises with students to test their reflexes and reaction times.

Students were thoroughly engaged in the presentations and enthusiastically shared their workshop findings with their classmates and teachers. As with most learning at CIS, the end goal was not to memorise a series of facts about the brain, but rather gain a deeper understanding of how people learn, and be able to apply this to their school and study habits in in order to become balanced and effective learners.