School: National College 'Eudoxiu Hurmuzachi'
    Radauti, , Romania

4 students, ages 17-18 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 13, 2013. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2009,2010,2011

Classes and Teachers: Gabriela Coaja

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.cnhurmuzachi.ro

1. Description of Our Community

A small town in northern Romania, Radauti is part of the historical region called Bukovina, which is famous not only for its kind and hard-working inhabitants, but also for the breathtaking sceneries you will find here. Being under the domination of the Austrian Empire between 1775 and 1918,these people have learned to value and protect these lands more than anything. The citizens of Radauti consider their city as being more than simply the area where they live. It is regarded as a vivid part of their lifes, that`s why they protect the local environment by cleaning the waste or even organising ecological activities.

2. Summary of Our Project

Our school is involved in many projects on ecology, and consequently, we became more and more interested in protecting the environment. We have chosen this theme, “The Earth breaths”, because not many of us care about the Earth, our home.

Protecting the environment is fundamental nowadays. It is not only about us and our contemporary world, but we also have to consider the needs of the future generations. In the past 20 years, Europe has understood that it lives beyond its real possibilities and that our lifestyle puts the planet to a test. We consume more and more natural resources and we put in jeopardy the ecosystems (water, soil and air). This issue must be stopped, mostly because of the population growth rate. If we do not change our attitude towards our environment now, our future will be less secure and more and more people will struggle to obtain natural resources, which are becoming very limited. This website is created in order to make people aware of the current situation and to alert them about our dying “home”.

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:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:more than 6

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Much as enjoyable as working for this project has been, there were obstacles that we had to overcome. Since our school timetable is so tight, we didn’t have too much time to work for the project without falling behind with our school work. Still, as we were aware of this chance to promote our city and especially our school, we did our best. Since we needed computer and web designing skills, we had to work extra hours to learn the essentials. As a team, we managed to find solutions and to finish the project in time.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

As soon as we asked for opinions in our classroom, and also from some other students in the school, everyone was so intrigued by the project that some of them even offered to help us. Together, we succeeded to clear the area around our school, we organised a competition in which all the students took part . We took photos which we exposed in the hall of the College and we offered a prize to the winners. We are happy that we managed to attract so many interest, and we are satisfied with the result.

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

Finding information for this project required teamwork, patience and conscientiousness. By working in a team, we enriched our English and we enhanced our collaborating skills. We found information that impressed us and made us want to find out more about the way we could protect the environment. In order to make people aware of the danger that they are exposed to, we have done volunteer work, trying to be models for them.

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

During the time we set up our website, we used our personal computers, having internet connection. Our main sources of information were the internet and the books. Our english teacher, Ms Drahta Gabriela offered us precious advice so that the translation would be in its best formula, and Mr Strugariu Ciprian helped us with the web hosting. Under the coordination of our Computer Science teacher, Gabriela Coaja, the website was created using HTML and CSS language. We would like to thank them very much for guiding us and say that without their support this project would not have been in its current form. We would also like to express our thankfulness to our classmate Ioan Ungurean for making some graphical elements in Adobe Photoshop.

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

In the beginning we started to present the idea of our project to the class, after, we composed a survey with questions concerning the ecological problem. We applied it to 264 students in our school, we gathered the answers and drew diagrams with the data, making it easy to understand.

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

In our town we managed to stir up the curiosity and the admiration of our fellow citizens. We showed them the importance of protecting the environment. Those who were interested in our project were invited to our exhibition.

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

There has been a variety of collaborators that came up with ideas to develop our website, or to organise different activities in order to inform the people about the importance of keeping our planet clean. They became conscious and, once they were gathered in the same place they worked with pleasure. We would especially like to thank Gabriela Coaja – our Computer Science teacher – who coordinated us in completing this project.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

We received help from the community, which we didn’t expect. A thing that took us by surprise during the project was the fact that we could easily work as a team overcoming any problems that occurred.