School: U CAN School
    Uzhur, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia

5 students, ages 11-17 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 19, 2016. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2012, 2013

Classes and Teachers: Mihkail Bukhtoyarov

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://

1. Description of Our Community

Siberian town Uzhur has the population of only 15000 people. Most of them work for agriculture. Here you can find delicious cheese and meat, vegetables and bread. Uzhur is famous for its farming products all over the region. The town is surrounded by beautiful fields, hills and forests. It has a long history starting with the ancient tribes. The town keeps its traditions. That is the place where history and modern era exist together.

2. Summary of Our Project

We often look for historical heritage in old buildings, but we seldom notice the plates with Street Names on these buildings. But the names of the streets are historical heritage as well! A friend of our team who is originally from Great Britain once noticed that Street Names in Uzhur are the mirror of Russian history. Some of them are really hard to translate because it has a lot of context, stories and people's stories and lives in their meaning. So we decided to do the research on our town streets and their names. It is a journey to the past that is inside the present. Do you want to join us? Look at the map of Uzhur!

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:4-6

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

Being very creative the project team had very little experience with planning, developing and testing the websites. So they had to learn a lot of new skills on the fly. As there was very limited material on the topic. So they had to do a lot of research to get the information and a lot planning on how to make it presentable in this format.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Street names reflect the character of the city! We use them every day without thinking but they really show us the ways people present themselves and the place where they live. Certainly they can tell us so much about the history. But they also show us how local people establish something they are proud of and something they want to remember about themselves!

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

The most obvious benefit of the project was the students’ first practical experience on how to do the research project. The material is very much related to Regional Studies class but thanks to the competition we had a chance to have a fresh view on the topic. Students learned how to extract data, analyze and categorize it. Of course they also contributed a lot to English language learning in practice. That is not very common for Uzhur, a remote Siberian town where the students have very little chance to really practice a different language. The project gave them a great opportunity to apply their knowledge for something very practical.

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

As our topic was very much related to the geographical names we had to work with a lot of maps both online and paper ones. The students also had to make and edit pictures. They used surveys in social networks to collect data. They had to learn how to do proper resource citing to fit the international research ethics.

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

Streets represent people. They show their pride and memories. Our team considers that as a great starting point for international cooperation. We have a great idea on the international project to present to our partners. We believe that Street Names have great potential as bridges between the cultures. We are going to promote this project internationally during our summer school season. We will use our website as a conversation starter for a bigger project on history and people’ ways of thinking.

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

The time is changing the historical landscape fast. Our town is developing but people want to preserve their heritage as well. Many young people do not have much of idea why their streets are named like that. They do not see interesting stories behind them. So we tried to make people think about the history of the town and the country that we can learn from the street names. The students discussed this question in social networks to make the community get interested in their unique heritage. We received many interested replies and used them to make a “Reference book” on Uzhur streets for the world!

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

We were discussing the street history with teachers at schools, friends and families, users of social networks. We are grateful to all the survey participants who inspired some ideas on the project. We are also thankful to our friend from Britain who gave us the idea of the project. He was really impressed by the meaning of Uzhur street names and suggested to tell the English-speaking world about them.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

The students discovered that even very familiar things like streets can hide a lot of interesting information about the past! If we are curious and can collect the data we can find out many fascinating and dramatic stories around us.