School: Taipei Bo Ai Elementary School
    Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.

6 students, ages 11-12 years old worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 19, 2004. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2003

Classes and Teachers: Ju Hui Tsao, Zhe Zhang Zhang, Xiao Jun Xu, 507 class

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://

1. Description of Our Community

Our school is located in Shin Yih District of Taipei City where was an extent of fields before the Shin Yih Developing Plan was put into practice. With time goes by, this place has become the most expensive area in Taiwan that every business eagers to move in. Therefore, the impact the grocery stores are facing in Shin Yih District is much stronger than that in other areas. Our investigation focuses on the grocery stores in our team members’ neighborhood.

2. Summary of Our Project

For the purposes we mentioned above, this research presents the chronological changes of the traditional grocery stores in Taiwan as well as the firsthand interviews with these grocery store owners and general consumers. In addition, we hope our project could promote the local to think about the value traditional grocery stores have brought to the community and help these grocery stores find out the possible survival way.

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:4-6

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

(1) Limited time: Since most of our student group members are busy in many outside-class activities, it is difficult for us to compromise with each other about the meeting time. Fortunately, the students’ parents support us a lot on this issue. (2) Limited references: We found that there were rare researches about our topic. Finally, we found two precious researches about the historical development of grocery stores in National Central Library that made the content of our project more abundant. (3) Surveys & Analysis: To get first-hand information, we design two consumer surveys for the young and elder age groups. It takes much time to discuss questions of surveys, revise them, type them, and later teach students making the statistic analysis by Excel. (4) The interview with grocery store owners: When teachers were looking for the grocery store owners who are willing to have interviews with us, there was one store owner refused our invitation that frustrated us at that time.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

This project was originated from students’ questions about the disappearing of old grocery stores in their neighborhood and ended with more concerns gave by the students, their parents, grocery store owners and the community residents about the change in our environment through a series of activities. Besides, our students have learned several skills of doing a research including observation of phenomena, getting first-hand and second-hand information, analyzing the information, making a conclusion and the bibliographies.

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

(1) Our topic is about the grocery stores in our neighborhood and this just fits the aim of school-central curriculum. Our project makes the students get deeper knowing of the community development by interviewing the grocery store owners. (2) The activities of interviewing on the spot and investigating by surveys both require the ability of communication and generalization that can not be learned from formal courses. This is the core spirit of the policy of “Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum”. (3) We applied many skills of technology such as searching data on websites, e-mail communications and the making of web pages. (4) In the process, we put the integrated curriculum into practice that combines language art learning field (the composition of webpage content), social study learning field (the historical development of grocery stores & communication skills), art and humanity learning field (the decoration of carnival booth, the design of web pages), and technology application (make the website). (5) The cooperation with others is important in the current curriculum. Our project takes a lot of teamwork that makes this website possible to be finished.

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

(1) Internet: We used internet both at home and at school to search for references, communicate and locat our website. (2) Telephone: This is used to contact with our group members and the people we interviewd. (3) Tape recorders and digital recorders: Students and teachers used our own recording machines to record the interviews. Before the formal interviews, we held coursed to teach students how to use the tools. (4) Digital cameras: We used them to record the process of all the activities in this project. We also held a course to teach students how to use them skillfully. (5) Scnner: We used the scanners provided by our school to scan the drawings and the note we took in the diary. (6) Computers: We used computers in the computer classroom at school, 507 classroom and our home. (7) Computer software: Dreamwaver, Flash, Word, Excel, PhotoImpact. (8) Libraries: National Central Library, school library, on-line library. (9) Newspapers and books (10) Essays (11) Oral interviews

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

(1) Website: We announced our website in the bulletin of our school. (2) Literal introduction of CyberFair to class 507’s parents: We gave a brief introduction of this contest as we were looking for participated students in research team. (3) Face-to-face introduction at the carnival of our school's anniversary celebrations: We made our surveys at the carnival so we introduce CyberFair briefly in order to explain our purpose. (4) Email: When asking for Mr. Xue Ren Xiao’s authorization of his book’s copyright, we did it . (5) Phonecalls: To the grocery stores we interviewed as we contacted with them before the formal interviews.

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

Firstly, the grocery store owners felt our concerns and sincerity of trying to help them promote their declining stores. We really hope our analysis and suggestions could help them improve sales. The project also recalled some adults’ memory of childhood that made them rethink about the wonderful values such as friendliness and concerns for people represented by old grocery stores in earlier days.

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

(1) Mr. Xue Ren Xiao: His book “The Old Taiwan Store” provides some precious pictures that were authorized by him to be used in our website as long as we refer to the origin. He makes us learn about intelligence property right and also provides the direction of research. (2) The grocery store owners: They sacrificed their naptime to have interviews with us and provided abundant information of their store. (3) Professor Rong Chong Xu of Taipei Mulicipal Teachers College: He instructed us the outline of research. (4) Teacher Yi Ning Qiu, the chief of media and data processing section of Taipei Bo Ai Elementary School: She taught students the technology courses and involved in the design of web pages.