School: Da-Tsuen Elementary School
    Chunghua, Taiwan, Taiwan

8 students, ages 11-12 years old worked together to complete this CyberFair project on February 20, 2003. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): never

Classes and Teachers: Ms. Wei Hsiang Ying, Ms. Chiang Hsiao Ping, Ms. Wang Hsiao Ching

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.dtps.chc.edu.tw/

1. Description of Our Community

The city of Da-Tsuen is located in the middle of Taiwan, Chunghua County. It is a small, simple, and traditional town. People in Da-Tsuen are full of human interest and enthusiastic. People will show their generosity and impressive style when the festivals or carnivals are held. “The Lion Dance” was a traditional folk custom in China—an ancient and historical country. The legends about “The Lion Dance” begun in the Gin dynasty and as time passed, “The Lion Dance” was retained deep in Chinese people’s memory. Because of our school’s location, we have many opportunities to watch “The Lion Dance” performance in many kinds of celebrations or traditional meetings. The spirits and religious convictions of the people in this small town play an important role. The adoration and respect from our childhood memories inspire us to investigate “The Lion Dance”！ We want to analyze its history, evolution, its purpose, its manufacturing process…etc.

2. Summary of Our Project

We searched many legends and historical stories about the lion dance. The most important process is making the lion head by ourselves. We invited the Sifu Shih（folk teacher）who is the famous traditional artist in Lu-kang to teach us how to make a lion head. It was an exciting experience for us. Although this was the hardest step in our project, we still finish the lion head at all. How beautiful smaller lion head we made！

We visited and interviewed the management or the older men who manage often go to the temples located in Da-Tsuen. We wanted to know when the temples in Da-Tsuen ask the lion dance to perform？ Or why do they invite the lion dance to appear？

We also interviewed the other famous person in Da-Tsuen who is the leader of the Chi-Ying Tang, and which is a famous lion dance team in Da-Tsuen. He is Sifu A-lu – Mr. Lee Lun Yao. He told us many rules about the lion dance, and why the lion dance combines the martial arts with the performance.

After our interview, we designed a questionnaire to ask our school’s students. We wanted to know the level of their understanding about the lion dance. After our count, we found out most students in our school did not know much about the lion dance. And these results encouraged us to research deeper and help these students learn more about lion dance.

We used books, VCDs, and got a lot of useful information from the internet in researching our project. Finally, we combined all that we searched, learned, and made by ourselves and created a beautiful web site to show our research process.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:more than 50%

B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:1

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:more than 6

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

There are 7 team members who equipped the computer with internet access in their home. But, our internet equipment is connected to internet by 56k modem. The speed of 56k modem is slower in our team member’s home then the connection in school. So we like to use and type our process report in the school. On the other hand, there are two teachers who applied the ADSL 512/64k to connect to internet at home.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

1、To communicate in Taiwanese：In all our research process, the biggest problem was communicating with older people in Taiwanese. Because our topic is the lion dance, people who know the lion dance were the community elders. We developed our Taiwanese speaking skill and did not feel so scared. We overcame this obstacle.

2、Limited time：When we were notified by our teachers to join the CyberFair competition, we were happy about the rare chance to join this team and worried about the deadline. Because of the lack of time, we must post our researching report to the internet everyday. And we must search some information about the lion dance on the internet everyday. We separated into 3 teams to search for each kind of topic.We hold the meeting at every Tuesday and Thursday. 3、Our first time：When we interviewed Sifu A-lu the first time, we were afraid and nervous.Sifu A-lu was nervous same as us, this was his first experience to be interviewed, especially to face us who were little guys！ He did not know how to explain very clearly and teach us all about the lion dance.Our first interview, first making lion head by ourselves, first visit to many temples in Da-Tsuen were all valued experiences.

4、gathering the information：In our common school studying, we did not need to interview someone. And we must gather all that we searched for from the internet, books, newspapers, magazines, questionnaires, the information interviewing and learning from making the lion head to be in the web site.Because of our age and experience before, we can not do such things very well.After the teachers’ teaching and explaining, we found that we were becoming smarter then before.

5、Place and equipment limited：As often as we wanted to use the computer in computer classroom, we can not go in there because the lock was too hard to open.We only can use the Dean’s office which equipped 3 computers.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

「Caring」--We care about our team members, our teachers, our school, and our hometown. 「Respecting」--We respect the competition with other teams, the interviewer, the team members, and ourselves

「Cooperating」--We have to cooperate every team member to complete this hard project.

「Listening」--When we met the problems, we have to listen more to the elder people’s teaching. And we can learn from their experience.

「Observing」--We learned about more observing. We know how to observe the temples’ construction and history…etc.

「Asking」--We were afraid to ask our questions to those interviewers before. But after this project, we became more and more courageous. We are full of confidence and we know how to ask the point of our question.

「Learning」--After this project researching, we became more modest to learn more and more things which we have not learned yet.

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

The local music and art forms address the content standard with our project. Because of our government policy—nine-years coherent curriculum, we combined the social science, art and humanity, and information technology. We learned many new skills from our interviewing, the questionnaire, creation from the lion head, and many computer skills. We hold the meetings to discuss what questions to ask, how to be polite, and design the questionnaire. We will preview to guess what troubles we probably met. Our project fit into the social science curriculum because of we search many information from our hometown. We have to love and care about our hometown which is the purpose of the social science. And our project fit into the art and humanity, too. When we made the lion head, we also learned about painting, music, physical training and team work. At the same time, our project also fit into the information science. We can search many information from the internet that would not appear on our books！Besides, teachers would not prepare all knowledge to teach us, they want us to search for by ourselves. We can develop our wisdom from searching on the internet and more effective then teachers taught. Teachers can inspire our interesting and guide us how to search for what we needed by ourselves. What a new experience of our learning！

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

a、Computers：We use 3 computers in the Dean's Office.Computers are our main tools to do our work.

b、Telephone：We used the telephone in school to arrange the interview and contact those Sifus.

c、Television and VCD player：We use them to watch the films in school about the lion dance.

d、Digital camera：We use digital camera to take the beautiful pictures about our research process. The digital camera can connect to the computer and transfer our pictures to the computer.

e、Digital recorder：We used digital recorder to record the interview and avoid forgetting important things. The digital recorder can record the voice and connect to the computer.

f、Scanner：Sometimes we use the normal camera to take the photos, so we need to use the scanner to scan those pictures into the computer. And we draw some paintings, so we need to scan them, too.

g、Digital web camera-CCD：We use CCD to hold a web meeting with some friends in other places. We connect to the internet and ask some questions with Teacher Wei's friend in United States.

h、Software：Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Photo Impact 8.0, Photo Shop 6.0, FrontPage xp, Dream weaver, Cute FTP, Flash, ACD see.

i、Libraries：Library in Da-Tsuen elementary school, Da-Tsuen public library, Yuan-lin public library, Chunghua public library.

j、books and newspapers and magazines：All information we referenced were listed in our web page.

k、oral interviews：Sifu A-lu,Mr. Lee Lun Yao, Sifu Shih Shun Jung, Mr. Lai Chung Lun in the Tzu Yun temple, Mr. Wu Chin Sheng in the Hsing Lin Kung, Mr. Lu Yung Kun and Miss Huang Su Ping in the Sheng Yao Kung, Mr. Lai Hsi Meng and Mr. Lai Jun Ling in the Chen An Kung, Mr. Yu Shih Chang and Mr. Kuan Te Hsing in the Chen Pei Kung, Mr. Huang Wei in the Wu Tung Kung. All the notes about our interview are gathered in our web page.

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

a、searching from libraries： When we went to libraries, the management is curious about our topic—the lion dance. Children of this age would not look for any books about this topic often. So we told them about our plan and project. They always encourage us and wish us to do well.

b、interviewing from the management in the temples in Da-Tsuen： When we went to the Tzu Yun temple in Da-Tsuen the first time, Mr. Lai Chung Lun showed his enthusiasm and generosity to us.Surprised for he would like to tell us so many things about the lion dance in Tzu Yun temple.The second time, we separated 3 teams to interview the other 8 temples in Da-Tsuen.

c、interviewing from Sifu A-lu and Sifu Shih： When we interviewed Sifu A-lu, he seemed very nervous and uncomfortable. Also, he used our mother language—Taiwanese to speak to us, we can not understand very clearly. We felt a little frustrated. We also interviewed a very nice person—Sifu Shih Shun Jung. He was the expert on the lion head. So we asked him to teach us how to make a lion head. He promised to teach us in our winter vacation.

d、making lion head with Sifu Shih： We gathered our equipment for making the lion head which included soil and sand with our parents. After those 6 hard days, we had a friend and teacher—Sifu Shih. He taught us not only the way how to make a lion head, but also taught us his method and view of life.

e、questionnaire from our schools’ students： We drew up a questionnaire to ask our schools’ students about the lion dance. Most of them don’t know very much about it, but all of them had seen the lion dance. We told our students all information about the lion dance from our interviews and from the internet search.

f、other teachers in our school： Because we want to do the questionnaire with our classmates and students, we explain it to the other teachers in our school what we needed them to help us.

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

a、Students： During this project research, we found out many interesting things. We went away from the classroom to learn first time, research something with other people for the first time, use many technological equipments for the first time, make lion head first time, interview someone else first time, be a reporter first time. We overcame so many “first times”. And we also needed to gather information from those “first times”！ It’s a very exciting and strange experience for us that we will not easily forget.

b、School and our local community： Because we went out to interview in our local community, many elders knew our project. Their encouragements gave us more confidence to continue our research. We were also able to publicize our school. We also helped teachers in our school, which can depend on our research to teach students about the lion dance.

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

First of all, we must thank Sifu A-lu—Mr. Lee Lun Yao and Sifu Shih Shun Jung. They allowed us to interview them. Especially Sifu Shih, he cancelled all of his arrangements to teach us. We felt so surprised by his kindness, so we made our lion head very hard.

When we needed to go out to interview, we met a big problem—the transportation. Fortunately, Szu Ching’s mother-- Lai Ai Chu, and Yen Chieh’s mother-- Huang Chao Ying, Ya ling’s mother-- Shu Hua, and Teacher Huang Chieh Peng would like to be our driver to pick up us. Their help supplied us a very big favor. We must also thank an important person—Mr. Tsai Tsai Chin. He taught us how to create a beautiful web page, and he also helped us to perfect our final draft. He also programmed a new function to search our information in our own web page. He did us a big favor for our web page！

Finally, we must thank the donation from Parent-Teacher Association, and the support from our principal--Mr. Lee Tsu An and dean of study—Mr. Huang Hsin Chun, the principal of Jih-Hsin elementary school--Mrs. Chiu Chin Chih. They provided us with many local news and information to make our interviewing a success.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

After our project research, we found out many things about the lion dance we did not know before. As the result of the questionnaire, we found out many children were like us before, and did not know these rules and origins about the lion dance. Most people had a lot of confusion about the lion dance. So we made this web page to introduce the lion dance to everyone. On the other hand, we also learned many skills about computers and technological equipment that have changed and improved us forever. And, we also felt proud of our lion head which we made by ourselves. If we did not do it by ourselves, we would not realize how hard it is！Never engage a challenge, never develop the wisdom can describe our position！