School: De LaSalle-Araneta University
    Malabon , Malabon, Philippines

42 students, ages 14-16 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 10, 2006. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005

Classes and Teachers: Ms. Leila A. Arevalo

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.araneta.dlsu.edu.ph

1. Description of Our Community

The town of Malabon is basically a coastal town situated in the northern part of Metro Manila. Malabon, together with Navotas, Valenzuela, Pateros, Taguig, Pasig, and Muntinlupa, form the Metro Manila outer ring of towns, with the city of Manila as the center. Being a coastal town, it is surrounded by abundant seas and ponds which produce quality sea products that can be exported to other countries. The municipality is bounded on the north and northeast by Valenzuela, on the west and southwest by Navotas, and on the southeast by Caloocan City.

Salikneta Farm, is the practicum farm for the Agriculture classes of DLSAU, it is located at San Jose Del Monte City in Bulacan, a peaceful area and very ideal retreat from the noisy and crowded atmosphere. The people live a simple lifestyle, hardworking and prayerful, blessed with natural products like fish, root crops, vegetables and fruits. San Jose houses the Salikneta Research Institute. The place is perfect for conducting Agricultural researches, practices and on the job training of the Agricultural students.

2. Summary of Our Project

The students from IV-Bro. Arkadius had made five websites for Salikneta Farm. Those websites served as their major project in Computer Education. There is no existing website for this farm so they decided to make one for it. Afterwards, there had been an oral defense for their project. They had to defend their project in front of the Computer Science students of De La Salle-Araneta and take each criticism as an opinion. The websites had been partly criticized. After the defense, the outstanding website among them all will be chosen to be the official website of Salikneta Farm that will be linked to the school’s official website.

This website aims to introduce Salikneta Farm to nature lovers and peace seekers who want to escape the noise and chaos of the metro. Not only does it provide a peaceful haven for the weary souls but also a training ground for future agriculturists and farm developers of our country. This place had also helped the Hotel and Restaurant Management students of the De La Salle- Araneta University in enhancing their food and milk industry knowledge and inspired its students in the field of Agriculture.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:21-50%

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

We had faced lots of dilemmas in conducting our interviews with the brains behind the development of Salikneta Farm. We had a hard time in finding our way around the 64 hectare farm. The weather itself doesn’t seem so happy during our trip because it rained very hard. But those un-avoided circumstances didn’t dampen our spirits in gathering information about the farm. Due to the land’s wideness, we ran out of time in gathering more information, data and pictures which will be a great use to us in developing our website. One of the many hindrances is the location of Salikneta. It is located in the wilderness of Bulacan and none of us is familiar with the place. It is found in Barrio Tungkong Mangga, San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan which we haven’t heard before.

Due to the land’s wideness, we ran out of time in gathering more information, data and pictures which will be a great use to us in developing our website. One of the many hindrances is the location of Salikneta. It is located in the wilderness of Bulacan and none of us is familiar with the place. It is found in Barrio Tungkong Mangga, San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan which we haven’t heard before. Several things that were beyond our control also did happen. Some of our classmates got lost inside the farm while searching for the bamboo plantation. Some of us almost fell off from a cliff , one of our classmates had injured himself in the barb wire, others had an unexpected swim through the river and we all went home dripping wet and freezing under the bus’s air conditioning unit.

But worst of all, some of us had our gathered information wet from the rain so they don’t have any choice but to go home empty-handed. Another one lost his mobile phone which contains pictures and images which can only be taken from the farm. With all the problems we faced in researching about Salikneta, we didn’t give up. We relied on the thought of finishing our project and being selected to be the official website of our farm and winning once more in the CyberFair National Competition then afterwards, in the CyberFair International Competition.

The experiences we had had also strengthen our bonds and friendship. We learned that the essence of winning is not all about competing, but in helping each other in accomplishing goals bestowed on each of us and doing our best. There is a saying “United we stand, divided we fall.” As long as we learn to cooperate and unite with others, we can surely reach our goals.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

De la Salle-Araneta University is one of the famous agricultural schools in our country; it gives an important role in the agriculture-related courses for the betterment of its students. It owns one of the biggest lands in San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan. Salikneta Farm, is used as a facility in forestry, agricultural operations and experimental/practicum which is experienced by most of its students.

Aside from serving as a laboratory and research facility, it is also used in conducting Agricultural-Forestry Ecology. This tourism-integrated farm is complete with recreational facilities such as horse back riding, carabao cart-pulling for passengers, camping, mini-zoo and conference area wherein visitors of the farm could stay.

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

Before we enter this competition, we were first required to make a website for our project. It is a difficult task to do because it’s our first-time to make a group project with our classmates that we hardly talk to. We have different point of views and we can’t find ways to put all our ideas in one project with out having heated discussions with our group mates.

It was the beginning of a lasting and strong friendship among all of us. We learned to help each other in order to create a great website. We had faced the dreaded panel of judges who reduced our websites to pieces in order for us to improve. Applying the values we learned to our daily lives, we aim to inspire other people younger or even older than us to do their best and not to settle for anything less.

We had used certified true information that we gathered through intensive research about the subject matter. All the photos, images and information had come from the Salikneta farm and none of it had been uploaded in the internet. By doing this project, we learned lots about Agriculture that we never know before. It helped us to understand Agriculture and Animal Husbandry better and in developing love for nature and the simple ways of life. We learned how to manage our time because we can never go back there anymore to conduct further researches without the company of our teacher, Ms. Leila Arevalo.

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

We used various softwares like Adobe Photoshop 7.01 for imaging, Microsoft Frontpage for creating website, certain browsers like Microsoft Internet Explorer, and as for the operating system we used Microsoft Windows XP Professional and also used the various programs bundled into it.

We used certain services and obtain most of them for free. Free services came from our website hosting providers like Bravenet.com and from our e-mail and instant messaging service provider like Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger provides an instant way for communicating each members of the team for meeting virtually.

We used film cameras, digital cameras and camera phones in photographing various places and things inside Salikneta Farm to incorporate images of them in our project. Majority of us use camera phones as our photographing tool because only a few can afford such expensive digital cameras even as far as we know the images came from camera phones are less impressive than real digital cameras. Film cameras, on the other hand, are quite expensive and time-consuming to process images to be used for the web because it requires developing and scanning. It may not be the best option for us to use camera phones but it’s possible for it to become a future thus camera phones can beat real digital cameras in manner of fast-moving technology and as for analog film cameras it slowly get obsolete as the world quickly becomes digital. We spend most of our time for photographing and incorporating the beauty of Salikneta Farm in our project and share it to the world is one of the most important missions as young citizens to our community.

For complete list of information tools and technologies that we used to complete our CyberFair project please visit the Bibliography page.

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

We found a lot of exciting and learning experiences when we are conducting interviews with the farm caretakers of Salikneta and by the time our whole section was there to conduct because at that time it was our group project for our Computer Education to build a website and as we know these lately to our Computer Education teacher by surprise only the best project will be chosen as the entry for the CyberFair 2006 competition.

All of us are fun to do our work as well as the people who conducted our interviews. We appreciate them for their willingness to accept our interview wholeheatedly and they said that they are appreciate us too for our time to visit them and spending our time to learn such industries like agriculture and forestry which our school has been its expertise. And for the first time we haven’t experienced yet this kind of rare opportunity for us to be once interviewers and spokesperson this big.

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

For this project was officially made not only for CyberFair entry but also serve as an official website for the DLSAU’s Salikneta Farm to be linked in DLSAU’s website. This project first became a school project and the best website will be to become the official site of Salikneta Farm then lately it announced that it also to be the official entry for the CyberFair 2006 entry. Our teacher in Computer Education the one who conducted to do the project announced to do this early since the month of July and to be submitted near the end of the school year.

She announced this very early to have our time to plan and finish this project in proper time. We learn how to make a good designed website by researching books about them and applied it to our project and do this not only to get higher grades but while making the website we think mostly of how it satisfy the client who will visit the site. This project has already made a large impact on our community by providing new way to experience and enjoy the feeling of a life in the farm at the comfort of your home.

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

Of course we cannot complete this project with ourselves. We must seek advise to some of the people we know that can help for our project. We’d like to thank our Computer Education teacher Ms. Leila Arevalo for explaining us about the CyberFair and how to create the Project Narrative. We’d also like to thank Ms. Denise Aguila for explaining different plants uncommon for city dwellers like us and also she explains and tells about the different tools for milking the cow at Salikneta Farm.

Some of the most important persons that we’d also like to thank are the following farm personnels: Mr. Salvador Frias as Salikneta Farm manager, Mr. Ariel Almeñana as caretaker, Mr. Segundo Pacardo as caretaker, Mr. Daniel Almina as sanitation keeper and Mr. Ernesto Cruz as Salikneta Farm security guard.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

We are all surprise to see that much talk-about farm owned by our school at distant San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan for the first time in our lives. We stunned at its beauty at the very first impression. We enjoyed staying there experiencing the life in the province that most that live in the cities like us had never experienced.

At first we don’t think that green grasses or tall trees may enjoyed us and thus keep us from bonding as if were in the classroom but at our surprise the mission of ‘only’ photographing the farm are mixed with fun adventure, unforgettable experiences and fun-filled activity. There we played while in the meadows and enjoying the strong wind and warm sun gives us an inspiration to make our projects as best as we could can even if the rain falls down it doesn’t matter.

We don’t expect ourselves get intimidated in life of the province but enjoy and get ourselves always ahead of the game like that at one time in the farm we had to plant Gmelina trees as part of our purpose in going to farm then the walkway was too far and we are all in the middle of the way when we get struck by rain we don’t matter if we’d step into mud's barefooted and step everything including cow manure. We learn more deeply of how to care for our Mother Nature after our tree planting activity although that most of us didn’t realized or care about the environment and we’d learned them after our hands get soiled and also realized the damage that we do in our everyday life to the earth.