School: Chin-Hsueh elementary school
    Tainan, Taiwan, Taiwan

5 students, ages 11~12 years old worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 15, 2004. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2004

Classes and Teachers: Wanting Tseng and Sheng-Fu Chiu

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.chps.tn.edu.tw/

1. Description of Our Community

National Tainan Teachers College Institute of Environment and Ecology is located in Tainan city, but its research was extended to Tainan County. Tainan was an early developed place, and this place has plentiful biological resources. There have not only few nature conservancies such as 'Si Chao' and 'Chigu', but also international conservancy bird, Platalea minor. Institute of Environment and Ecology is going to research about our neighbor in this year and take a step forward in practice concerning our environment. Our goal is raising our attention on our nature through this project.

2. Summary of Our Project

One day teacher brought a baby bird in the class, and this bird is called Platalea minor. We are all known Platalea minor is the famous bird because this kind of bird is facing extinct crisis, and many people feel like to protect them. In this project, we tried to find out who is defending this bird and how to save this kind of bird from harm and protect our environment. Therefore, we decided to interview Graduate Institute of Environment and Ecology at one day. This institute is focused on environmental ecology in Tainan region and measures our living quality. The purpose of this institute is trying to provide better environment for people and animals.

At the beginning, our teacher sent our request to the director of the institute of Environment and Ecology for interview. We inspected and learned from other schools’ artifacts and visited the institute of Environment and Ecology's web site before we went for interview. Afterward we wrote down our questionnaires and designed our web page structure. We went to visit this institute often and asked a lot of questions to the teachers and we participated in their training lesson also. We experienced that how they train up Platalea minor narrator and the practical way to save Tainan living environment.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:21-50%

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:more than 6

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

http://gsh.taiwanschoolnet.org/gsh2004/3356/narrative.html#overcome

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Behind the joyful harvest, it is full of hardworking, sweat and tears. The meaning of life is living with harmonious. The great damage could incur in a second but the retrieve can be not within the foreseeable future.

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

In this interview, we researched some information about ecological protection in Tainan region through the internet and our teacher showed us some VCDs relevant to this project as well. It enhanced our knowledge of environment and ecology in Tainan. We also participated in the Platalea minor narrator training, so we all are junior narrators now and our responsibility is to protect the environment in “Chigu”. According to our report, we do not only understand this protected bird in this region, Platalea minor, but also animals can exist safely with human beings from the good environmental management. We will upload our artifact to internet which contents of general understanding with Platalea minor, and in the other hand we would like to show our determination to protect this bird from harm to the world through the internet.

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

http://gsh.taiwanschoolnet.org/gsh2004/3356/narrative.html#pe02

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

In this project, we interviewed some people from the institute of Environment and Ecology, they are director Liu, Mr. Zhang, Dr. Liu, master student and research assistant. They guided us around the institute and let us see what they do for our environment. We participated in narrator training in person, and this training helped us to understand how to create the better environment for all the animals and plants in 'Chigu' region.

When we was arriving the institute of Environment and Ecology at the first time, director Liu was delighted in entertainment of us. He gave a description of the structure of this institute; it comprised Environmental Care, Environmental Conservation, Environmental Management and Green Power. He hopes that human activities, technology development and environment ecology can develop and exist at the same time. Mr. Zhang showed us a VCD which was about the development of green power. Dr. Liu investigates the Platalea minor in 'Chigu' in all times, so he is a expert in this bird.

The postgraduates in institute of Environment and Ecology were all very kind to us and they all welcomed us to interview them at any time. They do their experiments in “Chigu” on the weekend, so they go to visit Platalea minor and avoid the visitors to interrupt them in any not appropriate behavior.

I believe that our web site will help people a lot consequently and also they will know how important to protect our environment and people should know the way to observe Platalea minor in the future.

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

The content of conservation is not a well-known topic for us before joining Cyber Fair this year. For example, we do not exactly understand the values and contributions of conservation research groups. Fortunately, we learned a lot from the interviews with faculty in the Institute of Environment and Ecology (IEE) at National Tainan Teachers College. We gradually realize that conservation research groups are devoted to improve the environment of humanity to be harmony with that of other beings.

Unfortunately, although the living environment has turned out to be poor by the destruction of humans, a lot of people keep harming it ruthlessly. The ongoing pollution including trash, water as well as air results in the home of other beings being damaged. For instance, some crabs do not exist in Chigu wetlands anymore. Therefore, if we don’t protect our environment, black-faced spoonbills will never come and we can not see these lovely dancers anymore.

We expect to gain attention from people in our country and even those in the world by building this web site. We hope that the public can appreciate the efforts which the staff in the IEE makes and even support their work. Most importantly, we truly hope that more and more people will actively reduce the damage toward environment as well as be responsible for the protection.

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

We really appreciate the staff in the IEE for sharing their precious time to have interviews with us and to show us around. Ms. Tseng helped us to make the first contact with IEE and companied us while doing interviews. Ms. Cheng provided a lot of valuable opinions while discussion which greatly helped us organized the outlines of interviews. And special thanks for our parents providing the support of transportation and encouragement. Without the help and support of these persons, we can hardly complete the project by ourselves.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

The faculty we interviewed really impressed us a lot. We found them busy for teaching, going to Chigu wetlands for researches and developing new energies. Although we didn't understand their research papers, those processes sounded time-consuming and complicated for us. However, we thought we still could have contribution to conservation in Taiwan even if we might not be able to do any research right now. That is, we would implement the tasks of being a Little Narrator well in the future and introduce those beautiful black-faced spoonbills to the public. We believe that people will know how important it is to have good environment in order to see these cute animals.