School: Si-Yang Junior High School
    Changhua County, Taiwan, Republic of China(Taiwan)

10 students, ages 14 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on February 14, 2019. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2013,2014,2015,2016,2017,2018

Classes and Teachers: Sun ChunChieh, Hsu ShihYin, Hsu YunSheng

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://163.23.101.189/cyberfair/2019/web3/

1. Description of Our Community

Xizhou Township is located at the southernmost part of Changhua County in Taiwan. It is named Xizhou because it is alluvion, which is floating on the east and west of Luoxi, mainstream of Zhuoshui River. In Xizhou there is a native poet named Cheng Wu. Xizhou Township, Changhua County is a small township and features low terrain, covering area of 75.8310m3. Most of the villagers grow crops for a living, and the water relies on the largest river in Taiwan, Zhuoshui River.

2. Summary of Our Project

In the small corner of Taiwan's Xizhou Township, there are native tree planted by Mr. Cheng Wu. Due to the deterioration of environment, he considered growing native trees. There are many first-class tree species in the garden: Taiwan Ebony, Formosan Michelia, Taiwan Zelkova, Chinese Pistache, and Camphor Tree. He hopes these Taiwan native trees can be distributed all corners of Taiwan in the future, making people see the vitality of native tree species,and awaken their environmental awareness.

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:2-3

E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):

FTTB is connected to TANet and three broadbands respectively, and the download and upload speed is 100M.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Participated in the CyberFair research plan, ranging from proposal of research topic, organization of research team and division of labor, research schedule, IT to data collection and research report preparation. Despite many difficulties, we have overcome them one by one, as follows: http://librarywork.taiwanschoolnet.org/gsh2019/gsh8437/narrative-2.htm#a03

5. Our Project Sound Bite

In our hometown, there is a poet -Cheng Wu who works hard for environmental protection. The 'Pure Garden' he built by himself is an insistence on environmental protection and is focused on planting a variety of native tree species, caring for trees and using nature farming. We are deeply moved, so we start to plant native tree species on campus, advocate the concepts to all teachers and students in classes and flag-rising ceremony, and also went to the community for advocating. We hope that the advocating can arouse the attention of all teachers and students and the communities to environmental issues, make them take action for sustainable environment and leaving a better world for future generations.

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

We call ourselves the little angels of environmental protection. Nowadays, people are consuming huge natural resources, which increases environment load. Therefore, we step out of the classrooms and enter the communities to advocate environmental protection concepts such as planting trees, loving trees and nature farming. Our activities are aimed to impart environment protection knowledge to students and make them take action for environment protection. We introduce Pure Garden, a place that enriches ecology and protects Taiwan's tree species to make people realize relationship between environmental protection and ecology. We also have known the methods of energy conservation and carbon rights issues from the energy education network. These are complementary to the courses in the natural and social fields.

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

We use I-PAD and mobile phones to take the required photos, and use software to edit the photos.We also use computer briefings to present the best results of the web pages.In order to obtain first-hand data and increase the credibility of the project,we conducted many field interviews and also asked whether poet Cheng Wu agreed us to use a recording pen to record down our conversations and make interview records for use.In order to better understand the native ecology and poet Cheng Wu,we visited Pure Garden and Cheng Wu's home to confirm what we heard and saw.We cannot obtain first-hand data and most of them are searched through the Internet.

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

We studied the topic of 'Pure Garden' in order to make the local residents care about the environmental protection issues in their hometown and understand the importance of our advocating of planting native trees, loving trees and nature farming. Through the whole process of special research, we made website to advocate the concepts and list the environmental protection-related websites. We have also made posters. We first advocated the concepts in our school and then went to the nearby communities to advocate the environmental protection issues to the residents in the communities, and received warm responses!

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

First we advocated the concepts of loving trees, planting native trees and nature farming and relevant knowledge through briefing method in our classes and remind our classmates to plant more trees and reduce cutting; We also distributed the posters to our classmates and teacher during flat rising ceremony to advocate nature farming, which is less harmful to plants and people, and discuss the issue of global warming. We also went into the community together to advocate environmental issues to the public. We hope that everyone can love trees, plant trees and use less pesticides. We also advocated the environmental issues to foreigners when we met them. This also improved our English. During the advocating, I deeply realized that these issues have had many impacts on our community and the importance of loving trees, planting native trees and nature farming. Our earth is being destroyed. We should know more about our environment and earnestly protect it.

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

In this CyberFair, we collected a lot of information on environmental issues and compiled them into the research report. We held regular meetings every week and discussed the progress and took turns to record the contents of the meetings. We also went to the streets to advocate the benefits of planting trees, loving trees and nature farming to the communities. In addition, we also planted trees in our school and filmed the activities. We interviewed Mr. Cheng Wu and drew up the interview content. Mr. Cheng Wu elaborated his ideas to us and answered many of our questions.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

In this interview, we knew that Mr. Cheng Wu is so active in promoting the planting of native trees because we all worship imported tree species too much and neglect native tree species in our hometown. Mr. Cheng Wu told us a story. He has some friends engaging in building sector, and most of their advertisements are 'Deciduous Cypress Villa', so he asked them: 'Why not advertise 'Camphor Tree Villa'? His friend think camphor tree is too cheap and common to attract customers. However, they forget that camphor tree is one of the best trees in Taiwan. Although the deciduous cypress is really beautiful, it is not Taiwan’s native tree and is quite harmful to Taiwan. From this story, we can see it is necessary to plant and protect more native tree species in Taiwan.