School: Tsao Gang Elementary School
    Lukang, Changhwa, Taiwan

7 students, ages 10-12 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 18, 2004. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2003, 2004

Classes and Teachers: Mr. Su Jin-hsing; Ms. Tsai Mei-yu; Mr. Ko Da-jen; Ms. Liu Kuan-chun; 5th grade class 1 and 2 and 6th grade class 2.

E-Mail contact:

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

1. Description of Our Community

Lukang, our hometown, is situated in Changhwa county in the central part of Taiwan. It is one of the three earliest developed towns in Taiwan, that is, Tainan, Lukang and Wanhwa.

Lukang is a good place to live with Changhwa’s fertile plains to develop agriculture. With the advantage of its location near the sea and Taichung Harbor, Lukang has abundant aquatic products. That’s why when early immigrants came here, they relied on agriculture and fishing for a living. Since 1950s, “eel aquaculture” has become one of the town’s major businesses bringing in household income based on the following reasons:

(1) Abundant elver supply. The transparent elvers can be seen between mid November and March the next year.

(2) The successful eel aquaculture attempt at the Lukang Fisheries Research Institute in 1956 helped to lay the foundation for the town’s eel aquaculture by providing its counseling.

(3) Lukang’s water quality is good for eel aquaculture due to the right temperature as well as its rich saline soils along the coast. Lukang’s eel average monthly production has been set at a high of 400,000-700,000 kilos since 1986, about one half of the total eel production on the island, thus winning Lukang a nickname: “the country of eels”. Later on, many small-scale eel farmers faced a phase-out situation due to their management and funding problems during the slack eel sales, which were aggravated by the competition among the aquaculturalists and the serious environmental problems like using ground water and land depression. However, the upgrade of the aquaculture skills, development of the local sales and live eel exports as the major force after the phase-out period helped to steady the growth of the country’s eel aquaculture industry.

2. Summary of Our Project

The country’s eel aquaculture was downgraded to one of the “sunset” industries and the once-widespread eel aquaculture ponds were closed one by one in recent years. This brought us to wonder the cause of the rise and fall of the eel aquaculture of the country, its related industries, its impact on the economy of Lukang, and its future. We hope this research will lead us to find the answers. On the other hand, we hope to achieve the following aims by doing this research:

(1) Students learn to know the country and its eel aquaculture industry.

(2) Students learn eel’s ecology and its environment.

(3) Students learn the methods to do a research and think independently to solve problems.

(4) Students learn to take the initiative in learning and work as a team.

(5) Students learn to listen before they speak and speak to the point.

(6) Students learn to improve their writing by writing research journals and reports.

(7) Students learn to understand eel’s nutritional value, its cooking methods and different countries’ eel dietetic culture and cooking methods.

(8) Students are motivated to love family and country, care about the issues around their surroundings and exercise the ideals to preserve the environment.

(9) Students are enabled to express, communicate, and share and work as a team.

(10) Students are enabled to equip with information technology knowledge and skills to apply in real lives.

On the other hand, with the widespread internet, we share with you what we learned from this research about our hometown, the old country of eels. We hope through our research we will rediscover its competitive edge and bring its name to the world.

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:more than 6

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

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

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Problems:

(1) Timing: The time we could use at school was the lunch break. In the beginning we had difficulties getting altogether due to the same time that the school needed us to help with.

(2) Inexperience: Almost everything about the research was new to us. We needed to learn everything from the start.

(3) Language communication: Many of our interviewees spoke Taiwanese. It’s not easy to translate Taiwanese into Chinese, so is for the translation of the web pages from Chinese to English, which is a big challenge for us.

Methods to overcome our problems:

(1) Plan in advance: We shared our expectations of what we wanted to achieve in earlier meetings and then decided how we were going to do in the research.

(2) Give pre-interview education and orientation: The teachers outlined what we should do before, during and after the interviews, sort of a psychological warm-up, to help smooth the mental stress.

(3) Design supplemental tables and oral reports: The teachers helped us to design tables to grasp the points.

(4) Adopt teamwork and cooperation to type the reports: We grouped in three, one responsible for typing, one for controlling the mouse, and one for playing the tape recorder to share the work.

(5) We took tape recorders to record the interviews so that we could consult the teachers for things we didn't understand.

(6) Translate from Chinese to English: We asked the English teacher to help us.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Although the research is big and difficult for us, our hard work pays off. We learn by doing and grow by sharing what we learned. Learning by doing makes us confident in our ability to learn and sharing by narrating from memory what we learned makes us confident in what we learned.

It’s amazing that we started from scratch; however, we had a lot in the end to share. Going through every stage has broadened our visions and opened our minds. We’ve learned the most unforgettable lesson the first time from life instead of from textbooks.

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

The project brings related learning areas under a theme which is broken down into smaller parts for students to pick up. The project design rationale is summarized as follows:

(1) The information gathering and site interviews helped us to understand the hometown’s eel industry and learn to care for its future.

(2) We learned to work as a team to think and work out a solution by doing.

(3) We learned how to use the digital equipment in the process so that our ability to handle and knowledge on information technology were enhanced.

(4) Focusing on eels of the hometown, we learned different areas as a result of integration as well as the issues on information technology and environmental education. Please refer to the following table for an idea of what's expected of students to learn from the learning areas:

(1) Social Studies： Know the eel aquaculture of our hometown.

(2) Science and Technology： Know eels’ ecology and their environment.

(3) Language Arts： Write research journals.

(4) Morals and Health： Know eels’ nutritional value.

(5) Integrative Activities： Site interviews.

(6) Information Technology： Use digital camera for recording interviews; design web pages.

(7) Environmental Education： Know the impact of the eel aquaculture on the environment.

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

(1) Oral interviews: We visited the eel catchers, the eel farmers, the Lukang Town Mayor and the eel experts at the Fisheries Research Institute, to name a few, to know the eel industry’s past, present and future.

(2) Internet: We relied on internet to search information and on emails to communicate with teammates.

(3) Books and magazines: We made search on eel-related publications to enrich knowledge about eels.

(4) Tape recorders: We used tape recorders to record oral interviews for later organization.

(5) Digital camera, digital video: We used digital camera and digital video to record the process of interviews for later display.

(6) Scanners, printers, copy machines: We used scanners to record and edit images, printers to get the hard copy of the information and copy machines to duplicate the materials for circulation.

(7) Telephones, facsimiles: We relied on telephones and facsimiles to communicate with the interviewees and for liaison.

(8) Computer software: We used PhotoImpact6.0、Word、FrontPage2000、Ulesd GIF Animator4.0 、WS_FTP...they were mainly used for making and editing the web pages on internet.

Note: The majority of the above equipment was provided by the school while the digital video was provided by the dean of academic affairs, Ms. Tsai.

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

(1) Interview in person: We would first introduce the purpose of the CyberFair and our research for the interviewees to understand before the interview began.

(2) Telephone contact: We introduced the purpose of our research and contents via telephone to Lukang Town Mayor, the Fisheries Research Institute, eel aquaculturalists, the Eel Farming Industry Development Foundation and the Fisheries Agency, etc., to conduct our interviews.

(3) Media of the press and TV news: During the interview with Lukang Town Mayor, we young reporters attracted the attention of the uncles and aunties from the press such as the United Daily, Liberty Times and China Times as well as Changhwa local TV news, through whose promotion, our research was made known to the public easily.

(4) Work display: We displayed our research result in the learning gallery and formed a team to tell the story of our research. Hopefully the students of our school would also know the eel aquaculture industry of our hometown.

(5) Our website on the internet: We have become the ambassadors of our country to introduce our research through our CyberFair website on internet. Hopefully more people will get to know the drips and drops of our research and eels of our hometown through the unlimited internet.

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

(1) Build the image of “we care for the school and the local community”: Led by the principal, the research of “the country of eels” has gained the approval of parents in the beginning because we showed our care for the town we come from.

(2) Facilitate the development of the eel industry of our country: We helped locals to refocus on the eel aquaculture industry of our hometown and treasure the specialty we have.

(3) Develop educational function and expand the community teaching material: We displayed our research result in the gallery at our school to educate the young on the one hand and uploaded it onto the compact disc to expand our school’s teaching materials on our community on the other hand.

(4) Promote and market our research: We achieved the purpose of promoting and marketing our research for more people to know the eel aquaculture industry from our interview with Lukang Town Mayor. And we were on the press and local TV news attracting a lot of attention of the public. The media did a good job for local residents to know the eel aquaculture better.

(5) Call the attention of the administrative offices: We could bring up our suggestion to Lukang Town Mayor to facilitate our eel aquaculture industry which he thought was feasible. Hopefully we can combine the town’s tourism and eel related industries with the help of the administrative and marketing resources of the Lukang town office to board the country’s eel aquaculture on the international market.

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

From the start to the completion of the research, we were lucky to have had help and support from the guidance teachers, parents, townsfolk, eel aquaculture individuals, eel industries and communities, and the press, etc., to name a few, and those who learned that we were doing the research and lent a warm and helping hand.

We are grateful to their dedicated contributions in whatever the form, a portion of which leads to what you see on our website today. We also did our job trying to make our research known to the public. We owed sincere thanks to the press and the local TV news which made the promotion work easier and to whoever spread the news for us.

We hope to get the locals and the world to rediscover the important economic contributions made by our hometown’s eel aquaculture industry as well as eel nutritional value and eel products. Hopefully we can recover the pride in which the hometown once took being the country of eels.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

Discoveries: (1) Eels have such a particular life.

(2) Eels have such a tremendous strength to survive.

(3) Eel farmers are so tender yet careful in rearing eels.

(4) There are no rules but principles in rearing eels, which build up on experience.

(5) Family-run eel aquaculture excels the enterprise-run style.

(6) The future is promising because of the competitive edges enjoyed by the local eel industry.

(7) Doing research is not difficult as long as we know the way, together with diligence, teamwork, and effort-making.

Lessons:

(1) We learned from eels the vigor of life from which we learn to treasure our lives.

(2) We learned the importance of the eel aquaculture of our hometown, from which we grow deep feelings for our hometown.

(3) We learned the good old virtues such as diligence and hard working spirits for us to value and model.

(4) We learned from the support we received during the research to treat others the same when our help is needed.

(5) We learned by doing and sharing what we learned as part of learning.

(6) We learned from our experience to respect those giving us a lecture.

(7) It needs a good body of strength to be an eel farmer to be able to push the feed cart.

(8) Though a simple job as the eel farming job appears, it builds on a good level of expertise and experience to succeed.

Surprises: (1) Information technology products appealed to us that we could remote control the printers in the office and shared the data of other PCs as long as we clicked on the icon on the PC as long as it is connected by the network as one of the neighbors.

(2) The digital camera and video amazed us to an exclamation. The live images appeared right in front of us as long as there was a wire for transmission.

(3) We did it! We started from knowing nothing about eels; however, we turned out to be eel narrators. We could not help praising: “How marvelous we were.”