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1. Description of Our Community
Gukeng is located in Yunlin County, Taiwan. The eastern part is Chukentzu, Tsaoling Villiage which connects Chushan Town, Nantou County and Wufeng Township, Chiayi County; the western part is Mayuan Villiage, Chungchoutzu, which connects Douliu, Dounan and Dalin, Chiayi. The southern end is Lukutzu, Tsaoling Villiage which connects Meishan and Wufong, Chiayi; the northern end is Hsintso Tzu, Chipan Village which connects Douliu City in this county. It is the most extensive township in Yunlin County, and has the most mountains. It takes 5 minutes to travel from Gukeng to our school. It’s one of the most famous scenic spots in Yunlin. It has bountiful products, many scenic mountainous views which on weekends or holidays, many tourists or foreigners and our school borders both Douliu City and Gukeng Township. Both Douliu City and Gukeng Township share deep connections.
2. Summary of Our Project
We titled our project “The Revival of Taiwan Coffee after the 921 Earthquake“, because after the 921 earthquake, the environment of Gukeng was ruined, the crop was damaged, and farmers’ incomes decreased immediately. After the earthquake, the specialty of Gukeng coffee, which had been a hit, was almost lost. Fortunately Gukeng Coffee has revived in popularity. Under the management by a group of professional government officers and enthusiastic people from this locality, some coffee industries promoted the tourism trend in Gukeng, and brought back the product, that took the lead of new recreation industry.
Our purpose is to discover the local business organizations and people who have been quietly offering their heart and hard work developing this land, and how they conquered the difficulties with their wisdom in the process of revival. Besides, we’d like to know what we students can do, and to create a record on this web site to pass down the story.
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:dial-up modem
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):
Victoria Academy adopts ADSL to surf useful information and benefit teaching. In addition, there are two NT Servers and a LINUX Server used for WEB, DBS, MAIL, and FTP.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
There are many reports about events of Gukeng Coffee and oranges, but it seems no one ever made research of the connections of how Gukeng Coffee, oranges and Ma bamboo shoots (Dendrocalamus latifloxus Munro) have changed. Thus, the main problem is we’re short of archives. As a result, we only looked for first hand information, and the most direct source available was personal interviews. At the beginning we didn’t have a clue, we asked Miss Lee, our vice president for information about related associations so that we can set up the interviews with them. The process was complicated, and after we talked to the people concerned, we figured that many archives couldn’t be found on the internet or paper and magazines. For instance, Hsieh Shu-Ya, the former Gukeng town mayor and Chang Lai-En, the chairman of Baden Coffee’s encounter was one of the factors that had helped the revival of Gukeng coffee. This information made us so excited! Therefore, we thoroughly interviewed with so many people, we overcame our problem.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
After we got involved with lots of people and researched the development of Gukeng coffee, we understood the fame of Gukeng Coffee is not accidental, but it is accomplished with the tremedous teamwork. If we’ve got an opportunity without being able to seize it, we might strive in vain.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
We held a lot of events at school for Cyberfair, which includes language arts, society, science, art, geography, economy, PE; same aspects as our school’s integrated curriculum. Besides, these events were corresponding well with school’s curriculum, and we used “Cyberfair project” this class to integrate. What interesting is this year our project had broken the boundaries of grades that we invited all teachers and students to participate. From the angle of school’s curriculum, this is an innovative act. On the process, we learned how to create an original topic, and went on aiming at this topic, asked effective questions during interviews. Certainly, we’ve also learned how to work as a team, how to organize our research result altogether. When we encountered some particular and difficult concepts, we wouldn’t stop asking, wouldn’t stop reading new information, continuously discussed with teachers to complete the whole project. The internet is a necessary resource during our research. Besides googling information, we also used MSN, email to contact classmates, teachers after school, not only at school. Thus, the internet is very crucial. If we followed tradition, we might have spent a year for just google information.
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1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your CyberFair project?
Technologies Usage - oral interviews and telephones - visit experts; interview through several phone calls - internet:google, talk to friends online - books, newspapers -look for related documents and reports -recorders: record interview contents, edit the records - digital cameras:make and edit CD picture Albums - scanners, printers: scan newspapers or pictures, print out students' typing work -laptop computers: easy to bring with when visiting other places or people - flash drives: Be able to store massive data and picture files - computer software: FrontPage 2000, Dreamweaver 3.0, PhotoImpact 7.0, Golden Wave 3.0
2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person.
“Fragrant Gukeng Coffee” on our website was to introduce how we played this role. We held events like “Literature Award”, “presentation on campus”, “inviting the owner of Baden Coffee to school for an address”, “photography exhibition invitation”, “sketch in fine art class”, “Huashan hiking”, “tea meeting for promoting Gukeng farmers’ Association Coffee Series”…etc. These events were not only for marketing, but also for historical and literary information which was useful for us.
3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?
In addition to introducing Gukeng coffee and local industry, we connected the 921 earthquake and the revival of Gukeng coffee in an original way. We connected thorough research and sorted it out. Moreover, after the promotion this locality has known the story of Gukeng industries, and the toiled hands behind. In short, it’s like we have written a course about the development of Gukeng industries. This could be used by other schools for local geography and history teaching material.
4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?
We must thank many people, such as our instructors, Teacher Manfirst Kao, Henry Su, Roy Lin, other staffs Hunter Lin, director of Student Affairs Office, who had help us to hold Huashan hiking; Teacher Vivian Sun, teaching supervisor of Junior High School took us to make a survey in person. Especially thanks Ms Lee Chia-Fang, oiur vice-president; without her help, it’s impossible for us to contact business organization so successfully. Outside of school, Senator Hsieh Shu-Ya, Gukeng township Chief, Lin Hui-Ju, Chang Hsiao-Tzu, president of Huashan Association for the Advancement of Industry, Yang Fu-Yuan, director of Gukeng Farmer’s Association, Teacher Juan Jung-Chu, master of Photography, Teacher Tsai Hsien-Yung of Ming Chieh Cochin Ceramic Art, Mr. Liang Chung-Chang, confidential secretary of township office, Mr. WuYung-kun, Ex-board director of Huashan Association for Community Development, Mr. Lai Sung-Chih of Cerrado Café. Without their enthusiastic narration, we couldn’t know the thorough story of the development of Gukeng industry, and of course, we couldn’t finish this webpage.
5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)
We found that the interviews were so much fun because, for us the students, what the interviewees talked about happened so long ago, it sounded absorbing. Besides the information, we felt more about their feelings for it. What surprised us most was that the stories happened right around us, but we were not aware of it. Fortunately, we have participated in Cyberfair and the school has opened a project class for one period a week, otherwise this precious history might have been buried.
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View our CyberFair Project
(Project ID: 5293)
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