CyberFair Project ID: 2401

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International Schools CyberFair Project Narrative
Title: The Recipe for a Great Community
Category: 3. Business and Community Organizations
URL: http://www.morris.k12.nj.us/riverdale/fair.html
Bibliography: No bibliography page cited

School: Riverdale School
    Riverdale, New Jersey, United States

4 students, ages 12 - 14 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 20, 2003. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2003

Classes and Teachers: Mrs. Vics' Technology Club

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.morris.k12.nj.us/riverdale

Project Overview

1. Description of Our Community

The community of Riverdale is small close-knit town. In this small town there are many people and groups that effect this community. All of these groups focus on making a good community for their children to grow up in. Being a small town the police and fire department among others, appear in our every day lives. Through the parents, teachers, students, and other citizens of Riverdale, young people have a very positive environment to grow up in. In this environment there are many ways in which the youth can explore various opportunities.

2. Summary of Our Project

Our project consists of the necessary ingredients to make a caring community for young people. The theme that we chose is "A Recipe for a Great Community." A recipe card is the starting point for our site. From there you can travel to the other sections of our site. Our website tells a story of the many groups and organizations in our small town and how they work with the young people. We explored the numerous programs and events sponsored by our Police and Fire Departments, our Pistol Team, Women's Club, Emergency Medical Team, Library, and Riverdale Business Association. Our team members met with and interviewed key people from each group and then compiled the information to present to the readers of this site.

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):

Members of the Riverdale School Technology Club completed this project. They meet in our school Technology Lab where we have 23 workstations. All of these workstations are connected to our Local Area Network’s T-1 line.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Our biggest obstacle was due to the fact that this was our first year participating in this event. We found out about it late and have not had nearly as much time as we wish we did to create our project. However, due to hard work we feel that we will provide you with a quality project.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

This experience has gotten our members a greater understanding of the community, and the chance to meet the people that support and make our community go round.

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

Our students were able to learn the skill of web design using HTML. They learned how to create tables and other basic web functions.

This project was an extension of our school. We created this in an after school club. We were able to take a field trip to meet with key members of our community.

This field trip gave students a positive experience in interviewing adults as well as getting a chance to see how many groups in our community function.

As a group we learned that our school staff, and administration were all highly supportive of our efforts. We were given time to leave the building and any additional help we needed.

This was a great experience for our students.

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Project Elements

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

We used multiple iMac computers in our computer lab (Approx.5, 1 per student and teacher). We utilized telephones to contact each person we visited with. We used Sony Mavica digital cameras to photograph our travels to display on our website. We also used a scanner to scan our recipe card and other photos from our Women's Club. We used e-mail to stay in touch with memebers of the community.

The software we used was Netscape, SimpleText, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word, AppleWorks 6, and Fetch to upload our site.

Most of our information came from oral interviews with representatives from the groups with which we met.

The above tools allowed us to create our finished product. We are lucky to have a great computer lab with the necessary software loaded on the machines.

Our most valuable tools were our computers and our digital cameras. Without our digital cameras we would not have so many wonderful photos to share with our viewers.

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

We acted like ambassadors when we went around the town to gain information about the community. We questioned someone from each community part and gained more information than we had before. We also were informed about everyday life and updates of these community people. Now we are more aware of the work that these volunteers and workers do for the community and the school.

While visiting the local library we got the chance to go behind the scenes. We were able to help get the new books ready to go on the shelves. We barcoded them, and put their pockets in them. We also got to stamp the books for identification purposes.

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

We believe this project had a very positive impact on our community. The men and women who run the groups of our community now have more respect for us and as we do for them. We gained this respect was by asking these members intelligent questions about their jobs and role in our community. We now have much more respect for these wonderful, intelligent people in our community because we now know how much they work for the betterment of our community.

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

Our project relied completely on members of our community. Without their willingness to help we would not have be able to gather the information we wanted to pass along in our web project.

We complied a list of groups in town. Then we selected those who do many things for children in our town. We then asked our Principal for contact information for leaders in these groups.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

During this project we learned how to make buttons and impressive title headers for our website. We learned more about the every day life of our community, like how many people volunteer at the fire department and use their free time to do it.

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View our CyberFair Project (Project ID: 2401)

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