CyberFair Project ID: 5552

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International Schools CyberFair Project Narrative
Title: Ahmed Zewail : The Egyptian Nobel Laureate
Category: 1. Local Leaders
URL: http://www.zewail.ypteam.com
Bibliography: http://www.zewail.ypteam.com/English/contents/Ref.php

School: Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Young People's Library
    Alexandia, Alexandia, Egypt

4 students, ages 15 years old worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 21, 2009. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2008

Classes and Teachers: Sherine Said - Eiman Elwazzan - Muhammad Hegazy - Mohamed Bahgat - Mostafa Abdel Aziz - Mohamed Galal - Ahmed Wahba

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.bibalex.org/libraries/Presentation/Static/16110.aspx?dummy=0

Project Overview

1. Description of Our Community

Alexandria, city of Alexander the great, is the second largest city in Egypt, and its largest seaport, with population of nearly five million. Alexandria’s shores are one of the most important sources of tourism, and tourism is one of the most important sources of national income in Egypt. In Egypt we know that we need someone to look up to, a role model like Zewail to be an inspiration for those who are searching for success in their lives.

2. Summary of Our Project

Our project is about the famous Egyptian chemist Dr. Ahmed Zewail, a dreamer who made his way from nothing and against all odds to be a Nobel laureate, a prize and an honor he deserves for his contribution to the field of science. In the website we went deep into Zewail’s life and personal visions to know more about his inspiring 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:2-3

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:not sure

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):

Team members worked online through Google group and publish the work directly on the website

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

We had very hectic days while working on the website just because students have to spend most of their time in school and studying for exams, we found difficulties in finding similar vacancies in everybody’s schedule to make our meetings even if we did most of our work online.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Students as individuals serve their organization which is their school and Bibliotheca Alexandrina in our case here and every school serves the community playing the role of building new cultured generations. So if we started with the individuals and widen their knowledge, skills, and even their horizon we will give the community better persons at the end.

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

Our main content is the biography of the Egyptian scientist Ahmed Zewail, an ordinary man who made extraordinary achievements. The libraries mission is to complement the school curriculum with additional resources, and introduce young adults to information technology. New skills have been added to us such as gathering information, and meanwhile the gathering process we learned a lot about someone like Ahmed Zewail and how he made outstanding achievements in the science field. Cooperation, determination to get things done and work as a team against the odds. By giving ourselves the time to think of things and imagine them and acquiring new information that will give us some more clarification so we can understand things better. Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the embassy of knowledge in Alexandria and Egypt, wanted to spot the light on one of Egypt’s all time greats. Working on a project like this website is something totally different from working on our school subjects, in school they test how much you can acquire information and put them into the answer sheet, but when it comes to something like this website we saw things new things, researches have been done, indifferent words you need creativity to work on something like this, so creativity is a skill has been improved by working in this project.

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Project Elements

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

Library books, online databases, internet, newspaper, and periodicals. Books, online databases which is only accessible inside the library, YP activity room, two computers to work on, and all that we needed to get our work done was provided by Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Our most valuable tool is that we go to the library, almost, every day, and our most valuable physical tool was books, and having internet access and some sophisticated software (such as Microsoft Expression Web - Pro 5 - PHP – Lightbox Script - Swish Max 2 – Dreamweaver - Photoshop 10 CS3 - Flash – FileZilla) were the most helpful technologies.

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

As the team was from different schools, they started to discuss the idea of the project with their class mates, and they started to search for information about this subject. Parents were full of enthusiasm; they tried to help their kids in gathering information from specialists in the field.

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

In any community the role model is one of the most important values, we all need someone to give us the feeling that it is possible, we hope that people will be inspired by Zewail’s story so they can work harder and be inspiration to others.

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

9- As there was no enough time for asking others for help we tried as a team with the guide of our librarian to know what each one can do and try to get more information by self learning and organize our tasks to be ready on time and with the help of the library that give us a great support.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

As Egypt is considered a developing country, we found that the students tried to educate themselves through reading and self-learning, without depending on the government for support or subsidiaries. Such dedication indicates the love they have for their country and the understanding needed to improve their environment for the better.

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View our CyberFair Project (Project ID: 5552)

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