School: Yu Jen Catholic Primary School and Kindergarten
    Taichung, Taiwan, R.O.C

9 students, ages 12-13 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 12, 2003. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2002

Classes and Teachers: Lu Shu Chin , Ku Li Chin and Tu Wei Chen

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.yjes.tc.edu.tw/enpark/index.htm

1. Description of Our Community

Taichung is a city with mild climate. It’s also rich with a lot scenic spots and heritages. The most significant landmark of this city is Taichung Park. The heritage and history of this park is very intriguing. It makes us realize the importance of cultural resources. We have to cherish it and maintain it properly. In this way, we can enable next generation to understand our remarkable heritage and culture.

2. Summary of Our Project

We chose Taichung Park as the topic for our project research. Speaking of Taichung City, Taichung Park comes to people’s mind. It’s the best place for local’s recreation and health. Many historical and cultural heritages can be found in the park. By this project, we hope people can learn to maintain our precious cultural heritage and make later generation understand the history of Taiwan.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:less than 20

B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:more than 6

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:2-3

E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):

Our computer rooms are equipped with 60 LEMEL computers with LTD monitors. The authorized Windows 98 system is used. Each classroom is also equipped with at least one computer for teachers or students to use.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

In order to make a perfect website, we encountered many technical problems. However, we overcame the problems still. What are the problems? At first, group members had time conflict. We understood the importance of the competition; therefore, we made use of noon break. We even spent our group activities time in the computer room. Some of us were even crazier. They went to computer room to do the task after school. The procedure is very tiring.

In order to do this project, we also had field trips in order to observe, record and listen to explanation. Here comes the problem too. Many of us needed to attend tutoring class on holidays, having trips or participating contests. We managed to save our time for this project. Some of us still had problem to participate. But we got solution. We tape-recorded our field trip.

Because of the two patient and gentle teachers, even we encountered a lot of troubles, we still could learn and improve during the procedure. They are also our motivation to go ahead.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

You’ll understand the importance of exercising once you are in Taichung Park. Many people are here to dance, to play balls, to walk and to bike. Some classmates’ families have a better understanding of Taichung Park because of this project. They are also learning how to maintain this park and share the responsibility as one of Taichung locals.

How to maintain our environment? Even if you are busy and have no more time for extra contribution, you can pick up littering whenever you saw it. Or, simply by not littering, you’re doing your contribution. Or, you can use some cleaning tools to help clearing.

Learn to understand Taichung Park, and you’ll be more aware of it. Environmental conservation won’t be too difficult.

6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?

The current goal of education is multi-learning. By this chance, we use website to understand the well-kept heritages that witness history.

In order to deal with many articles and journal, we had to do a lot of brainstorming. This exercise allows us to improve our language capability and arrangement skills. Meanwhile, we learn the precious cultural heritage of this city and the idea of heritage conservation. This is how we learn local culture.

We also learn cooperation, teamwork, color matching, article editing, drawing skills and so on. At the very beginning, some software was very strange to us. We never had much chance to use it. We may have a little knowing of some software, but it’s another story to apply it. Therefore, we had to start from the very beginning. Learning and reviewing were undertaking at the same time.

1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your CyberFair project?

1.Telephone (school) Function：Making inquiries Usage：Telephones save our time because we need to contact busy officers. 2.Digital camera and recorder (provided by school) Function：Shooting scenes, taking pictures and recording speech Usage：Digital camera is provided by school; recorder by group member. They are tools to enrich the record. 3.Software (computer room) Function：researching, home page editing, drawing, animation producing and photo assessing. Usage：The set of software we used include IE6.0, FrontPage 2000, PhotoImpact 6.0,painter, ACDsee, Ulead GIF Animator 4.0, Word2000, Outlook Express and so on. We knew most software in our fifth grade. However, not till producing the website do we become familiar with them. Our instructors always emphasizes that we need to use computers to make vivid pictures. 4.Books, newspaper and magazine (provided by group member) Function：Searching data Usage：In addition to retrieve information from net, we also paid attention to messages on newspaper or magazines. 5.Oral Interview Mr. Lin Liang Zhe of Taichung Culture Department, local people, housewife association and Taichung City Mayor, Mr. Hu Zhi Qiang Among above resources, we particularly like the interaction with interviewees. The personal experiences are real and impressive.

2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person.

We are all ambassadors. We personally met our interviewees and talked to them. Each of us prepared questions and made appointments before interview. Therefore, we are all ambassadors.

When we had questions, we’d think who’s the best one to give us the answers. Once we decided whom to interview, we’d make appointment and relative details by phone call, and then follow through our plans.

Mr. Lin Liang Zhe is very knowledgeable of the heritage and history of Taichung Park. We attended to the heritage tour in which he gave the explaining speech. Also, we asked for his advice to enrich our website content. Besides, we wrote email to the city mayor and talked to his secretary by phone in order to understand the city government’s play for Taichung Park. By this way, we had a better understanding of our researching topic.

3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?

We are surrounded by the beautiful nature. However, because of the intense life pace of mondern people, seldom do we have recreation time to get near to the nature.

By this opportunity, we all realize that it’s not so difficult to embrace the nature. Nature is in our daily life, like Taichung Park. In the park, you can see different kinds of plants. Bigger ones are like the century old trees-java silk trees; smaller one like grass. Butterflies are dancing all over while turtles are defending lotus leaves. If you have time, hope you can embrace the nature like we do.

4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?

Mr. Lin from Taichung Culture Department, for example, provided us old photos of the park, explained the history and the original situation to us. He offered the first-hand and precise information. He is a great help to us.

Then, we’d like to thank those beautiful and energetic aunts. We participated the learning tour conducted by them. We learned what we couldn’t from other places.

The city mayor saved us some time to take photo with him He is very kind and care about this park. He asked the staff to answer our questions and to reply us via email. Finally, we’d like to thanks Lin Mon Jei and Cheng Zhu Yun who made illustration and pictures for the website. Their job enriches the content.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

We found that many practices on the net are obviously against law. We know the importance of not violating intellectual property right. The right thing to do is to publish our own work. We learn a lesson from this experience.

To our surprises, we found that once we figured out a problem of one kind. Later whenever we encountered similar problems, we could solve them at ease. The teachers were very happy with our capability. Sometimes without the teachers’ instruction, we still could figure out things. We are smart cookies.

They are our wonders and discoveries.