School: Battle Ground Elementary
    Battle Ground, Indiana, United States

70 students, ages from 10 to 11 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 12, 2001. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2000, 2001

Classes and Teachers: Mrs. Schmidt's Fourth Grade Music Classes, Computer Club, Mrs. Smith, a fourth grade Teacher, Mrs. Hayman, the Librarian, Mrs. Huhn's Art Club, and Mrs. Field's Enrichment Class

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.wvec.k12.in.us/bge/

1. Description of Our Community

The community of Battle Ground is quite small. There are approximately 1000 people. Many of the residents work in the surrounding communities of Lafayette, West Lafayette, Brookston, Monticello and Delphi. We are also closely connected to Purdue University. Our community has great historical significance. The name of the town is related to the Battle of Tippecanoe. The community has a small town look with the elementary and the middle schools within the town limits. We bus many of our students in from the surrounding rural community. Although farm land surrounds the area, very few of the families farm. There are approximately 450 children who attend our elementary school.

2. Summary of Our Project

In the fourth grade, our students study their state heritage. In our music classes, we continue this study, but we approach it from the curricular areas. In extended studies, the art and computer clubs make it one of their goals to research and interview local artists. The students enjoy researching local artists and finding out about the resources in their community. Many of our students attend the festivals that are held in their community. Within our school we have many talents that we try to utilize by reaching out into the community and sharing. We researched the community and the school events to show how they were linked to one another.

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:1

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dial-up modem

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:4-6

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

Our workstations consist of a lab of 30 machines which are Pentium 200MMX, 32 MB RAM, 2.5 GB hard drive. The web browser is Netscape 4.7, and our internet connection is a 128k frame relay line to our Tippecanoe School Corporation central office.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Our problems were very minor. Perhaps the biggest problem has been keeping the children on task. Many times we would see them experimenting with the colors and fonts with very little work being done on the subject matter. While they loved to surf for images and backgrounds, they were never happy with the ones they had acquired. Involving three different subject areas with four different teachers also slowed progress for the computer club who put the final articles together.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

"This is really cool!" "When will it be up on the web so we can look at it at home?"

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

Our fourth grade curriculum covers state and local Indiana history. From the music curriculum we continue to enhance this learning process by learning about our local Indiana musicians as well as our state musicians. Research, oral communication and writing skills are all part of the curriculum. We applied those skills toward our information hunt of local artists. The computer club met after school, so we were able to set our own goals for what we wished to accomplish in the support of the project. However, in anything we do, we try to enhance the present curriculum. The art club members were able to look at other artists to see how art can be applied. Enrichment classes were able to take their research on structures a step farther by applying it to their community and then "publishing" their reports.

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

Lab - Networked Computers IBM 300 PL 30 machines Netscape's Composer to create web pages Half Baked's Hot Potatoes to create interactive quizzes Jasc's Paint Shop Pro 6 to create buttons and images Telephones to establish contacts Microsoft Works to word process Digital and still cameras to capture images of our community Scanners to digitize pictures Zip drive to store all files Lafayette Journal and Courier newspaper for research of community Guest speakers and local artists for oral interviews

The students have learned to use the Netscape Composer's web editor to create their web pages. They learned to save images from the WWW to their disks. Then they added color and backgrounds to their pages. They began to understand how to relate a picture's pixel size to placement on a page. They were able to add links to their pages as well as take them from the web. The students learned to transfer digital camera and still camera images to disk easily. They even learned how to invert the pictures. The most valuable tool was an old fashioned one. Bringing the musician or artist to the student helped make the project and the community seem more real. Technology and pen and paper were brought together by the classroom teacher having the students write about the people or events.

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

The artists and musicians were excited to share their knowledge and their talent with the students. The more we worked, the more artists and musicians we discovered in the community. As we discussed these in class, students would tell about their relatives who play for their enjoyment or someone in the community who performs at local churches. Private instructors were thought of as musicians instead of "teachers". Many people offered information about new artists and musicians that the students and staff had not discovered. Parents even notified us about articles that appeared in the paper about new groups "Would they work for your project?"

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

ur project has already impacted visitors in our building. As we work on our project other teachers or staff see what we are doing and want to know when it will be online. Other classes not directly involved are wondering when they will get to view the project. Some classes were aware of the guests we had in our building for presentations, and now the other classes are wanting to know "When is it our turn for the visitors?" With the guests entering our building the community has been brought closer to the students. We have inquired about their life styles, likes, dislikes and seen and heard samples of their life and work. Through our web pages we hope to help our community to become more aware of their community members and to become aware of the contributions the school is making to its community as well.

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

As we invited the community in, the guests informed us about others in the community that we may or may not have heard of. We had a middle school computer class and instructor who wanted to help proof read our pages and check our links. This is part of their computer curriculum to review other sites. Volunteers took students to take pictures that might be needed.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

We learned about the dynamics of working as a group and trying to meet a deadline. We learned that getting the job done often requires overtime, such as, giving up free time or having no recess. The students were excited about using scanners and digital cameras. They loved putting together their web pages and then checking to see how their "published" works looked on the internet. They also learned that even though they like certain backgrounds, colors or fonts, they don't always look good on a final project.