School: Kaohsiung Municipal Hsin Hsing senior high school
    Kaohsiung, R.O.C, Taiwan

25 students, ages 15-16 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 21, 2005. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2005

Classes and Teachers: Roger Chen[teacher group representative(six teachers in total)], Paul Wu[student group representative(twenty five students in total)]

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.hhhs.kh.edu.tw

1. Description of Our Community

Tzuo-ying is located as a northern district of Kaohsiung City, with the Taiwan Strait on it's west. Since ancient times, it is noted, for the Wan-dan Port. Half Mountain and Snake Mountain form native landmarks north and south of it, respectively. The Lotus Lake connects to Turtle Mountain near the center of Tzuo-ying.

The place was developed very early in history, so it's noted for traditional villages. The charms of a city could be shown in its culture, art, literature and architecture. Old cities survive in this age, because it's vitality consistently are released .

2. Summary of Our Project

Shin-long Village was the old name of Tzuo-ying. Located in an important military strategy position, during the Ming dynasty and the Ching dynasty, Tzuo-ying is a vital base to Taiwan. Ming dynasty called it Wan Lien District, and later, Feng-shan by the Ching dynasty.

Nowadays, it still makes people respect the place and tradition by being proud of it. When we did this project, by using views of humanity, geography, scenic spots, religions and features, we found out that Tzuo-ying is an ancient town that has many treasures that we should discover and cherish.

The golden elders we interviewed, once said: 'This place is covered by white clouds and filled with peach flowers. You can not find this place whenever you want to, because there is no place other than this that's better than heaven.' Therefore, to maintain it's superiority, everyone has to work together and soar to new hopes. Only this way, we can all reach this hidden utopia.

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:4-6

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

We used the computers with internet at the computer classroom in school. We would go to the computer center as well.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

No one can say they've never had problems delaying them. After solving one problem, another one comes up. Problems like distribution of personnel affairs, information collecting and project planning were the norm. The one most serious problem, was for us students to gain a balance between both our academic performances, and web pages.

The final exam came almost when we'd come to the last stage of the project, so we could not get together all the time. Besides, parents permission was another problem that we have to overcome. Chinese parent's one hope is that their children only concentrate on their academic performances, rather than other affairs.

With the school work in senior high school particularly stressing, there is really little time for us to look at both sides of things. These were the gates we had to go over.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Facing the music is the faith we hold and consist. At the beginning, we knew nothing about this project, but we moved away all the obstacles and solved many of the problems in return for a better way out.

Experiencing team work, researching, interviews and finishing the project, we all know that we cannot face the belief that anyone in our team is of no use. We believe this project owes to all our hard efforts.

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

When we did the web pages, we realized that the precious culture, customs and humanity of Taiwan are the first things we have contact with in our learning. Through information collecting, interviewing and editing, we learned it is not only a simple contest of web pages, but also worth a lesson for students. We learned how to introduce the local specialties, history, and geography to people, and find those information that once occurred in our history and geography text books.

Some stories are told by our parents. The results comes to that life is about learning. We integrate everything we learned onto this project and its web pages. We recall our memories to what we studied before, and learn more about this project. In fact, doing web pages is like reading a book. We have to do it step by step and read it chapter by chapter. You also have to learn from other people's mistakes and make improvements on our own. We did really, learn a lot from this project not just mentally, but socially too.

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

Tools and Techniques Purpose telephone, e-mails and cell phones to contact about interviews, and make a dates digital cameras and tape recorders to record interviews, and interview people computers, scanners and printers to edit web pages and classify the information books, newspapers and brochures to collect related documentary of the project Yahoo, MSN to discuss the work of our web pages

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

It was an encounter by accident, that we had a great helper in our team to support us to be ambassadors. When one of our members, Yu-wen, told her father that she would like to become a participant of CyberFair Contest, her father decided to help us as a volunteer.

When we wondered where to start out project, Yu-wen's father recalled that he once lived in Tzuo-ying, and studied in the local high school for three years. After graduation, he had lived near the Tzuo-ying Stone Tablet Area (Zen-fu Temple) for more than eight months. He is quite familiar with the local situation and thinks that Tzuo-ying is a place full of beautiful scenery and nice people.

It is worth discussing and exploring, and we can study Tzuo-ying's past and present. He offered this idea to the whole team as a suggestion. At that time, one of our members, Yu-lan, told us there would be a one-week long Wan Lien Festival coming up. Thus, we decide to study the local features. Yu-wen's father went along with us, becoming the ambassador of our project naturally.

He helped us to collect the information pamphlets and brochures, also helping to interview people. Not until we devoted ourselves to this project do we know the hardness and pains of our own studies. We had the thought of giving up several times, but Yu-wen's father always encouraged us to keep it going, and told us that he believe there will be a great outcome. We were inspired, and decided to hang on this project and finish it. Honestly, speaking, Yu-wen's father is our most important supporter who help us to stick to our goal.

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

We learned a lot of experience that we hardly meet in our daily life, during the making of the project, such as keeping a collection of information and interviewing someone live. These are very precious experiences that we will recall in the future. By doing this project, we keep digesting different knowledge's to understand the human culture, geography, features, and its beauty and tears of Tzuo-ying. Those are ones we had never discovered before.

In recent years, Tzuo-ying started to hold the Wan Lien Festival and try to unite people's power and belief to rebuild the beauty of Tzuo-ying. Besides, they want to construct a prosperous future of Tzuo-ying and make in known in the world.

We hope that whomever views our pages, can really understand and realize the beauty of Tzuo-ying. Not just to know more about her history and culture, also to cherish it to our offspring's.

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

During the process we met a lot of problems. The first thing we thought is to ask help from our instructors. We really do appreciate our instructors for devoting themselves through day and night in this project and helping us thoroughly.

We learned how to beautify our web pages and solve problems. Moreover, our teacher reminds us to work on schedule, which is really a big task, too. Undoubtedly, we want to thank people who live in the Lotus Lake neighborhood and the chief of Tzuo-ying. Without their help and advices, we could never had made it. We appreciate the chief, telling us every thing he knows, remembers, and shares in his experiences of the Wan Lien Festival with us.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

What we learned about Tzuo-ying on the text book before was not enough for doing this project. We knew it as a delicate picture on the book and a military base in the Ming dynasty. To us, Tzuo-ying is nothing but a ancient military town on the map.

However, this old town Tzuo-ying is still standing in our life, and on our earth. Though we are gradually forgetting the value of this old town, and no longer remember its history. It is still a classic ancient town built by ancestors tears and laughter's.

In this research, we take the positive character to study. We surf on the internet every day, go to the libraries on weekends and holidays. Just like playing a jigsaw puzzle, we put piece and piece together to construct this plan. When we really concentrated on the writing, we found out that Tzuo-ying is a beautiful place that we had never learned before. It's value of history and humanity is worth our concerning. A so-called classical site cannot be just about architecture. It should be a vivid text of history and we have to pay more attention to it.

After this project, we want to say that the final goal is not to have a nice product. It is the spirit we hold to do this research worth praise. To apply what we learned in our academic performances, we believe that study can be a more interesting thing.