Nicholas

I used to think that Labrador park is just like any other park you can find anywhere in Singapore. Initially, Labrador park whenever i heard of its name, the impression that will come to me that it is just a war memorial.However, this time i went my impression of it changed, I came to know that it was also a nature reserve.I have gained a clearer picture of what the topics we have learned.

The first area was the aerial tower.The forested area below the aerial tower was similar to the tropical rain forest we learn earlier in the year when we touched on natural vegetation.It is very fascinating to know that there is such a feature in such a urban city like Singapore.I appreciate the efforts of the way environmentalists do to try to prevent the rate of soil erosion.

After climbing down the aerial tower we proceeded to the jetty.It is actually not a beach but a wave-cut platform, although they are look similar.the difference between the both is that wave-cut platform cannot be seen during the high tide while the beach can.There was a cliff over at that area.From the cliff we could see a notch forming at the base of the cliff.The waves that were coming in were all spilling in onto the beach surface.The activity we done there was that we calculated the wave period.That was rather interesting and unique experience as we had never tried before actually counting wave periods.

We then went on to the Promenade.We saw one of the method of coastal protection which was the seawalls.I believe that the walls were built there as the waves heading toward the shore were much more stronger compared to the area where the jetty was.The seawalls will slow down the rate of erosion as when there are stronger waves there will be a larger backwash will lead to a faster rate of erosion.

Finally our last stop was the Dragon Teeth Gate.At the area here we witnessed weathering taking place.The rock there, due to weathering overtime, had turned reddish-brown in colour.So it was obvious that the chemical weathering of oxidation was taking place on the rock.I also could infer from the colour that the rock contained certain traces of iron as oxidation could only occur when there is iron present in the rock.

This trip was one of the few geography field trips that our pure geography class had in the year.It was acting like a reminder to what topics we have learned in the year.I feel that it was more into helping us to recap with the topics that we might not have such a clear understanding upon.And from this experience we have learned not only about the classes we have but also getting to know the environment of little tiny dot country of ours' a little better.