CyberFair Project ID: 5042

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International Schools CyberFair Project Narrative
Title: Wonderful Huarui Tibetan Culture
Category: 2. Community Groups and Special Populations
URL: http://www.yellowsheepriver.com/~gs000061/2007/
Bibliography: http://www.yellowsheepriver.com/~gs000061/2007/bibliography.htm

School: Westland Junior High School
    Wuwei City, Gansu Province, China

4 students, ages 16-17 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 7, 2007. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): never

Classes and Teachers: Pu Cheng, Joy Tree

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://gs000061.edu.17888.com

Project Overview

1. Description of Our Community

We live in Westland Village, Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County in Gansu Province, China. Tianzhu is the main area where Huarui Tibetans live, and it is far away from Tibet Autonomous Region, where most Tibetans live in China. Tianzhu is the first autonomous county in China, and it is the hometown of white yak. The population in Tianzhu is about 80,000 and the percentage of Tibetan is about 30%. Different from the culture in Tibet, Huarui Tibetan culture has its own characteristics

2. Summary of Our Project

The theme of our project is Huarui Tibetan Culture, and we planned to choose daily things beside us but easily ignored as our research object, such as language, religion, costume and daily life. Through a serial of interviews, we found how special and brilliant our culture is. One of our participants, Niu Dang-zhi, who is a Huarui Tibetan, but gave up learning Tibetan language, lots of students like him know little about their own culture. After we finished this project, Dang-zhi said he became very proud to be a Huarui Tibetan, and had a wish to learn Tibetan culture in college in the future. Since Huarui Tibetan is a minority in local area, we felt more responsibility to protect our culture in future.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:none

B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:1

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):

The computers in our school are donated by Yellow Sheep River Project. The participants don't have computers at home. There is only one computer with Internet access, and this computer helped us much on finishing the project.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Huarui Tibetan Culture was too big a topic for us, but although we live in Huarui Tibetan area, we really know little about our own nationality. The first problem was that we didn't have even one book about Huarui Tibetan in our hands. We had only one computer to access to the Internet, and we had to control the cost of accessing to the Internet. So we had to find other ways to solve it. The Tibetan language teachers in our school had to give up much rest time to answer our questions, and we even wrote to the mayor of Wuwei City, where our county belongs to, to ask for his new book. The host in Shama Temple accompanied us for a whole day to introduce Tibetan Buddhism to us. Every noon, we would study for one hour.

The other problem is that since we live in the village, and never go out of the mountain, we don't have enough confidence to participate in an international competition. Fortunately, our teacher kept encouraging us, and we really found much joy to participate the competition.

Other problems such as time limitation - we can only carry out the project at school, since we live far away from the school and we don't have computers at home. And the problem like we had to walk for long time in bumpy road, all of them we have overcome.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Teachers found that they are proud of their students - the children are really capable.And they hope the website could open a window to let more people know about the nationality. Students found that they are proud to be a Huarui Tibetan and their own culture is brilliant.They learned to unite and cooperate, and got deep friendship from the program. They also learned that caring about others is more important than learning knowledge in text and getting better performance in examinations. The school got more concern from the outside world, and people from Taiwan, Hongkong and other places kept visiting and helping the school. Local people got the name of Huarui Tibetan and were very glad to see more people visiting them. The mayor got the name of CyberFair and encouraged the children to participate in the competition.

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

Our research related to different subject such as Tibetan language, religion, arts and so on. We visited everywhere of our community such as temple and herdsman's home. We got the help from all kinds of the society and learned more that could not get from the textbook. And we also learned how to collect information and how to talk to others. All these abilities will accompany us for a whole life.

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Project Elements

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

1. Hardware facilities: one computer, one digital camera (donated by Yellow Sheep River Project), one tape recorder, one scanner, and one flash disk. 2. Computer software: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Microsoft Word, CuteFtp, IE 3. Books: donated by the mayor of Wuwei City 4. Internet 5. Oral interviews Above all, computer, oral interview and digital camera are most helpful to us. Since we can use computer to access to the Internet to search for more resource and use interview to record real life. For digital camera, it helps us to show pictures to people.

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

The students talked to people to the community and let them know the competition. They not only collected the information through interview, but also used the information they learned to talk with local people about the culture of Huarui Tibetan. This helped more local people know about our own culture. On the other hand, the students emailed to donators (One student of our team is getting donation for tuition) and participants of Yellow Sheep River Project. People from Taiwan, Tianjin and the USA visited our school in 2006, and helped the school a lot.

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

We wrote to the mayor, and introduced the website of our project to him. He is also a Huarui Tibetan, and felt quite happy that young students are studying the culture of our community and encouraged us.

Local people in the community, especially those old who don't have much knowledge have got the name of 'Huarui' from our project, and they may encourage more to their children to learn Tibetan language and culture.

People from all over the world will get the name of 'Huarui' after reading our website, and may have the interesting to visit our community.

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

Thanks for Yellow Sheep River Project, we got computers and digital camera from this project, and employees of this project helped us to register and participate in the competition. The mayor of Wuwei City- Mr. Zhao Yong-hong offered us a book of Culture Under Snowy Mountains and encouraged us. The schoolmaster Mr. Yang Bao-lin and the accountant of our Education Area Mr. Guan Zhao-xin who gave up much rest time to support our project Mr. Wilson S.H Lee in Hongkong who helped us on revising the translation All interviewees such as the Lama in Shama Temple and the parents of the students, they welcomed us warmly and supported us without any reservation

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

Discoveries - As we carried out the studies, we found that Huarui Tibetan culture is special and brilliant, we feel more interesting to learn it and protect it.

Lessons - We should make full preparation before go out to interview, or we may get nothing. Click here to read the related story. http://www.yellowsheepriver.com/~gs000061/2007/story_2.htm

Surprises - When we got the letter from the mayor, we were surprised and excited.

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View our CyberFair Project (Project ID: 5042)

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