School: NKNUSH
    Kaohsiung, No, Taiwan

6 students, ages from 15 to 17 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 8, 2001. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2001

Classes and Teachers: Chun-chin Kang and Gwai-fang Chen

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.nknush.kh.edu.tw

1. Description of Our Community

In the campus of our school, there are often some butterflies that fly and dance gracefully flying by our sides. Watching these butterflies that seem to be familiar to us, we can't even name one of them! If we ask our classmates about the names of the butterflies, the reply always is, "Who cares about the name of a butterfly? As long as I know that is a butterfly, that is enough." We are sorry to find out that little many modern youths born and brought up in Taiwan know little about butterflies, which are the most valuable treasure God has given us. As a result, it occurred to us that we could build a website to introduce to our society unique butterflies that only exist in Taiwan. We hope people can know more about butterflies in Taiwan and try their best to protect butterflies from extinction. Then, Taiwan will truly be worthy of the name "The Realm of the Butterfly."

2. Summary of Our Project

Formerly, because of the poor economy and poor education of most people, the ancestors in Taiwan used to capture many unique butterflies, make a lot of specimens, and sell them to foreign countries to earn money. In recent years, the living standard in Taiwan was raised, and people then started to pay attention to the protection of butterflies. Since we are the residents of Taiwan, it is our duty to learn about various kind of butterflies, protect them, and keep them dancing beautifully around us. We put in order the information we have collected from books and pictures, and introduce them accordingly by their structures of body, species, variety, features, and the different periods of ovum, larva, pupa, and imago. We hope you enjoy them and love them as well.

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:2-3

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):

When we stayed at home, we connected with Internet through Hinet or Seednet accesses. Besides, if we are free during classes, we will go to the Computer lab to use the equipment there. The LAN access that is used there is truly much faster than the accesses we use at home!

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

During this project, the biggest problem we faced was the lack of time. Because of a lot of activities in our school and our personal busy schedule, it was really hard for us to work together. But, somehow, we still managed to overcome all the difficulties and focused all attention on finishing this project. We learned and tried hard to make our layout as beautiful as possible. When we were collecting information we needed, we had to sacrifice our holidays. It was really tiring. But, when we saw the finished project we did, we all thought that it was worthwhile! The language was a big problem for us. Since our mother tongue was not English, it was hard for us to translate our project into English since there was a lot of terminology about butterflies. At last, we asked for help of our English teacher, Ms. Kang. After we finished our translation, she would correct some grammatical errors for us. By the way, we had intended to take a trip to enjoy the sight of butterfly to the mountain areas near Kaohsiung county. In addition to the project we made, we also wanted to encourage people to get close to the nature and special creatures by writing down the process and our own reflections of this trip. However, some classmates who live there told us that there are not so many butterflies any more. We were sad to hear this and decided to cancel this trip.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Fly, fly, through this cyber space to this Realm of Butterflies. You¡¦ll have a most fantastic and breath-taking encounter with them ¡V the most graceful dancers of nature in the most gorgeous designs.

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

There are elementary, junior high, and senior high divisions in our school. Our title "Butterfly" fits in with the teaching of all the three divisions since there are classes of nature or biology. This project can help our students to know more about butterflies that they can't learn from the textbooks. It can help them not only learn more about butterflies, but also can arouse their interest to study butterflies.

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

We collected a lot of information for our project from Internet and books from our school's library, and picked up several kinds of butterflies that only exist in Taiwan. We also added some current information that we found from newspapers and magazines. Then, we use computers' softwares, such as Microsoft FrontPage 2000, Dreamweaver UltraDev 4, and PhotoImpact 4.2, to do the type-setting and beautification of layout. In order to finish our project in time, we worked together more than ten times to make sure that everyone was progressing well.

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

Because of our topic " Butterflies," we first drew up several questions and had an interview with our biology teacher, Ms. Chen, in person. We asked questions such as "Why is Taiwan nicknamed "The Realm of the Butterfly"?", and "What causes the decrease of butterflies?" These questions were concerning the crisis of the existence of butterflies. At last, we focused on "What can we do to save the butterfly?" We hope that people can be informed and aroused to protect the butterfly by leafing through the content of our interview. We have built another page to display the content of our interview. Please take a look at it!

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

There is no better way than to arouse the masses to pay attention to butterflies and then try their best to prevent it from being extinct. They will also know the butterfly more, including their varieties, features, and living styles. They won't consider it just an "insect" any more. Besides, by making web pages, we fulfilled the goal of "Network Teaching." Not only the students of our school but everyone in the world can learn about the butterflies in Taiwan. It is surely the most meaningful impact!

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

Because we needed professional and a large amount of biology knowledge, we first asked help of our biology teacher, Ms. Chen, and got a kind reply. Ms. Chen was willing to help us. She offered us much information about butterfly and had an interview with us. Besides, we give a special thanks to Ms. Kang and our computer teacher. They helped us by correcting our translation and offering us the best equipment that we can use. Also we will give special thanks to those librarians in the public libraries who helped us locate the information we needed for this project.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

The Butterfly is one of the symbols of the vitality and multiplicity of Taiwan. Because Taiwan is an island, there are a lot of unique creatures existing only in Taiwan. We hope that not only the butterfly but all the creatures can be cared for and protected. By finishing this project, we also made some discoveries, lessons and surprises as follows: (1) We enjoyed the sense of achievement of completing a project with teamwork. Though our team members are not form the same class, we became good friends after the project was finished. (2) We are also amazed by the beauty of the butterflies. Once we found a special kind of the butterfly, we were excited and eager to know it better. The more we found, the deeper we fell in love with them. (3) We realized how hard it is for us to use time well and how difficult to do a research on distinctive and integrated information. In order to avoid letting others feel bored when surfing through our web pages, we went to many libraries to look for interesting information. This is an important lesson for us to learn how to use the resources around us effectively. (4) Ms. Kang, who is in charge of the library of our school, promised to purchase a series of books written by Yong-ren Chang, a famous expert of butterflies in Taiwan, so that students can learn more from these books, hence to gain more knowledge of the butterfly. Though some of our team members will face the pressure of college entrance exams next year, we are looking forward to further research on this subject by the schoolmates in the near future.