Our Innovations
Water Recycling Plant and Solar Panels
To maintain the lush greenery in our Eco-garden, the school installed a water tank to collect rainwater, in alignment to the national effort in saving water, and set up a network of automated sprinklers, which were powered by 9-Volts dry cells, to water the plants. Constant inspections were required to ensure that there was sufficient power to drive these sprinkler systems. To reduce manpower needed to replace the dry cells regularly and to further tap on a renewable and consistent source of energy, the school set up solar panels to power the sprinklers. This is in alignment to the economy drive and energy conservation efforts. This is also a value-added educational resource to educate our pupils and staff members.
Soliless Green Wall
Our soilless green wall is an innovative and cheaper alternative to those found commercially. Our green wall is easy to install and does not require complicated technical skills to maintain. We created this wall as we have already used up the available plots in the school to create small gardens. In view of global warming and the space constraints in the land-scarce Singapore, we want to introduce alternative gardening to our pupils. Our green wall has a dual advantage in schools as it serves as a learning infrastructure and a solution to cool classrooms and provide a comfortable learning environment for students.
To create our own green wall, we worked with the system that was created by Patrick Blanc. We tweaked our system as we could not find the similar materials used by Patrick Blanc. It consists of two pieces of felt stapled on a 10mm PVC board. The green wall we have created uses pockets to hold the plants. Slits are made on the first layer of felt to make the pockets. Removal of wilted plants, if any, is easy and replanting is almost effortless. The design is slim and compact. As it is a soilless system, the growth of weeds is less than a normal garden. Time spent on weeding is kept to the minimum. There are hardly any bald patches as the plants grow well on the felt that is porous and mosses and ferns grow on it naturally, giving it a very natural look. Hence, our green wall is low in cost and maintenance.
Currently we have 155 m² of green walls in the school. Our Innovation has been recognised by several organisations, winning us several awards.
Greenwave Environmental Competition 2011(1st Prize $4000)
3 awards at the Skyrise Greenery Awards (SGA) 2013 by National Parks Board
Excellence Award
Special Award – Best Innovation & Best DIY Project
MOE Innergy Awards – Gold
Most Innovative Project/Policy category for PS21 ExCEL Convention 2013 – Silver Award
Our Orchid Hybrids
A group of students for the Life Science and I & E Club were successful in creating our first orchid hybrid. The flowers were pollinated in school by students in 2010 and the seed pod was sent to the nursery for germination. In June 2013 the young orchids were planted on our Green Wall in front of our school. The flowers started blooming shortly after. A competition was held in school involving students and teachers to name this new hybrid. It is called Dendrobium Hougang Primary School and it has been formally registered as a new hybrid. This means that this flower is one of its kind in the world and it can only be found in HGP!
Our Second hybrid
Our second hybrid flowered in November 2014 and it was during the time that our second Principle had announced she was posting out. We named this flower after her. It is called Dendrobium Sabrina James. It has been formally registered and was a perfect gift to our inspirational Principle!
Mushroom Farm
