School: Kaohsiung Fukang Elementary School
    Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Taiwan

8 students, ages 9-11 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on December 30, 2003. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2004

Classes and Teachers: Mr. Chang, Zue-Chow; Miss Lin,Chien-Ching; Miss Chen,Shu-Fei; Miss Yang,Jin-Fen; Mr. Hsieh,Juan-Yuan; Mr. Shiung,Shain-Yi; Huang, Chun-Yan; Ou, Chie- Yu; Liu, Tzung- Hang;Lin, Yuan- Tian; Shr, Cheng- You; Wang,Cheng- Hau; Wu, Man- Shiun; Chen, Yu- Heng

E-Mail contact:

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

1. Description of Our Community

Taiwan is located on the key shipping position of southeast Asia. While the country is famous for her economic success, the world comes to know Taiwan as a smuggling place of endangered wild animals. However, the situation has been changed: some people have worked to establish rehabilitation centers like the Pingtung Rescue Center for Endangered Wild Animals (PTRC). As the children of the global village, we have the responsibility to join the world in reserving the wild life, and to renew the negative image on Taiwan.

2. Summary of Our Project

The main purpose of this project is to understand how PTRC is taking care of the endangered wild animals, which have been abandoned or confiscated. The professional treatment on the animals gives a good lesson to us as how insufficient care we have been imposing on our pets. Indeed, children are the chief buyers in the pet market. Finally we have to make it known that 'No trade means no harm on wildlife'.

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:more than 6

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

Most of the time, in order to proceed with the compilation of information and network, we used the information resources and internet system provided by Fu-Kang Elementary School. At home, we used personal computers to surf the net, to communicate with one another, and to process the materials and data we had got.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

In the beginning, the researchers of PTRC often couldn’t understand what we wanted to know because we didn’t get the skill of asking questions properly. After the adviser’s help, we did some practice and made several real interviews; we’ve learned how to ask questions properly and got the answers we wanted.

From the researchers there who accompanied us without grumbling even though they already had heavy workload, we learned to follow the teacher’s advices and to finish our job in due time.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

“No trading, no killing”.

Children should not play the role of buyer in the pet market.

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

We adopted the environment issue from our school courses as the main topic in this project. Besides, we also learned a lot about the attitude of respecting life, knowledge and concepts on animal conservation.

We might miss some school courses because of those interviews, but we learned some other things that we may never get from school.

Teamwork was such an important part for our research process; without this spirit, we might not accomplish this research. We gain new skills beyond books, including working on computers, asking questions, getting points, and filing information. We tried our best to finish everything the teachers had suggested.

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

At first, while we were just starting to get the project in hand, we used video and still cameras to help us collect information.

We used Microsoft Word® to process literal data, arranged digital pictures with PhotoImpact® and Movie Maker®, and then dealt all the media data with Microsoft FrontPage®. All of the data were in the teaching disk of our school’s LAN. Such is convenient for the group members to share and discuss the contents.

We also tried to look for the information we needed from books, newspapers, and the Internet. We made a lot of review and discussion. Finally we set our information in a neat version.

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

The PTRC keeps the animals in need and take good care of them. We recommended our school to schedule visiting PTRC and to design teaching activities. We, the project participants, are the “professional guides, of course. We believe we do a good job to show the visiting students everything about PTRC. In doing so, we hope more and more fellow-students will build up an attitude of 'respecting life”, especially the wildlife.

It will be very heart easing to know that people around the world are getting to know how much Taiwan has done on saving the endangered animals in the past few years through our report.

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

We get acquainted with the keepers of PTRC, who patiently explained everything to us. They helped us to be more familiar with the activities of saving endangered animals in Taiwan, and we came to realize that we shouldn't despoil animals' rights of living free and shouldn't hurt their kinds, if we really love them.

We hope people around the world can understand our project and all of the countries will be able to work hard together on protecting wild life: stop capturing or smuggling wild animals. Human should keep the environments natural for different species to live. Moreover, we hope we can change the downside image on Taiwan. We will not treat animals in cruel ways but will try much harder to protect them. There are nice people in Taiwan, too.

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

We would like to thank every keeper in PTRC. While they have to take care of more than 600 animals in the center, they still found time to be with us. And many thanks to our teachers for their advice, guidance, and giving us a ride to PTRC, which is situated 50km away. Besides they also kept us on the right track. We dare not take a break, as these people surrounding us were very serious and industrious themselves.

We also got to spend much time with our family members and classmates, who had provided us a lot of information and ideas.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

Discoveries:

I am able to do whatever I can to fit into the group. For example, I tried to be as quiet as possible not to bother others while visiting the center. Talking aloud, acting fast and hitting on the cage are not allowed.

Lessons:

Stop capturing and hurting animals on purpose, and stop abandoning them at will. Animals need proper living environment, and they need freedom just like we human beings do. We got to know what animals like and what they dislike, and learn how to be a pet keeper before we own one. We should not keep a pet just because a sudden thought and abandon it after a while. We simply have no right to do so. We should protect animals instead of being terminators.

Surprises:

We learned how to treat animals with cordially, and to consider the circumstances from their standpoint. Just think, 'Will I enjoy this if I do the same thing to myself?' We should try to improve their living conditions in human society.