School: De Wadden
    Haarlem, Noord Holland, Netherlands

15 students, ages from 10 to 14 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 30, 2002. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2

Classes and Teachers: Rene de Vries' grade six

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.wadden.vuurwerk.nl

1. Description of Our Community

Haarlem is the capital city of the provence Noord Holland. Haarlem is about 15 miles away from Amsterdam, the capital city of our country The Netherlands. About 140,000 people are living in Haarlem. It has many historical buildings and museums. The Grote Markt (Market) is the most famous part of Haarlem and some building are more than 1000 years old.  Our school is in a 40 years old district: Schalkwijk. We have houses and apartment buildings.  On our school, we have students from around 30 different nationalities. In grade 6 we have at this moment students from 7 different nationalities. Our school has two locations. We are from location Molenwijk. The other location is situated in Boerhaavewijk. 

2. Summary of Our Project

With this project we are sharing the story of four brave Dutch women who rose above the oppression of the Nazis during WWII to fight for what was right, true, and just. The four women we tell you of helped many others and will always be remembered for their courage and strength. They are great examples for us to follow. They were leaders in how to stand up and help others. They are examples of how people try to survive under extremely difficult circumstances, telling the people around the world to Care and Unite!

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:dial-up modem

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 use a stand-alone PC with ISDN connection (64K) to access the Internet. We do not have a Local Area Network. Hopefully we will have that for our school building next school year. We are trying to get more computers for the classrooms.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

We enjoyed working on this project very much. One problem to overcome really was not too bad. We are students from an elementary school in The Netherlands and our native tongue is Dutch. English is a second language for us. We are learning quickly though and our teacher is very good with English and helped us with our grammar.

Another problem was access to computers. Our school has a limited number of computers. We teamed up and that problem was solved, because we took turns with working in teams on this project. All the students worked side by side, and submitted the Dutch versions of their report in time. Our Design Team used templates to do the Dutch version layout first. After that, the pages had to be translated and we copied the layout to the English version site.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Our city of Haarlem, The Netherlands is such a wonderful city with a great history. One important aspect of our city history is how we managed during the years 1940-1945 of World War II when our country was overtaken by the Nazis. There was a great movement of resistance by both men and women. We are highlighting four of the Dutch women with this project, showing how these women are examples to all of us even today on how to Care and Unite! 

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

The project fits into our required school guidelines. It supports cross-curricular activities such as: History, Geography, English language, Creative Process, Creative Awareness, Decision Making, Communication skills, Creative writing, critical thinking and cooperative learning. The research was intense and inspiring.  The students worked hard on the researching and writing of this project.  The Design Team learned how to create a web site and they will teach the other students the coming weeks.

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

Many different information tools and technologies were used in completing our CyberFair project. They included: Phone to make appointments with museums and to invite grandparents. Our classroom computer to do the design work and computers at school and at home to type the reports. Television to watch old movies about Haarlem Scanner to scan photos Webcam and digital photo camera to make digital pictures LCD projector/Beamer to show the results and discuss the templates Microsoft Frontpage - HTML software Microsoft Image Composer and Micrografx Picture Publisher - to process the images CorelDraw to make drawings and animations Microsoft Internet Explorer to connect to Internet Eudora for email Video Conferencing with our American friends of Cannelton to discuss certain problems... education is not complete the same in USA and The Netherlands and of course we want to make a good web site for our CyberFair entry Oral interviews with elderly people from the resistance Visits to Ten Boom and Anne Frank museum.

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

Our project gave us a chance to tell the world about a part of the history of our country, especially our town, Haarlem, during the times of World War II. We feel it is very important to tell about what these four women did to help others. 

The students interviewed people in our town who lived during that period to find out their memories of that time period. They visited both the Ten Boom Museum and the Anne Frank house. they also interviewed many well-known citizens about this time-period. 

Each year a man from the resistance comes to our classrooms to talk with the students. The students asked many questions this time about these four women and about how their work impacted generations to come.

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

It has an impact in many ways. Living in such a wonderful city as Haarlem, with such a rich history, it is very important to keep the stories of these fine leaders alive. Many people helped with this project, as mentioned above. We interviewed many people (see our credits pages) visited both the Ten Boom Museum and the Anne Frank House. This project is now and will be a place where fellow Dutch and all of the rest of the world will learn not just about these four fine women but also about how it is possible to stand in the face of injustice and fight it. 

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

Our previous answers highlight how we have involved several community volunteers, both as speakers and resources for information, as well as just helping us with rewording, reviewing and such. Don't forget... this project is made by students of "only" 10-13 years old, students of grade 6. We also asked for help from our friends from USA whom we have worked with, to check our English for mistakes. So, the global community helped as well.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

Teachers, parents and grandparents who already saw the website commented on how much the students enjoyed the activity.  We have several immigrant students in our class, and they did not know much from our national history before we started the project.  We hope our project will be a discovering for those who wants to know more about the history of Holland, and use it for their own lesson plans.  As for a fact, our school is a pilot school for Internet for about 20 other schools in our district and we hope that our enthusiasm and our web site will inspire the other schools to be more online to discover the advantages of the Internet and new learning methods. The students discovered they can accomplish a lot when they share and unite. They also found out how even a few who care can help others to care and unite!  We want to thank the people of CyberFair who make it possible that schools around the world can join the annual contest and to work together like this. This contest is a great learning experience for all of us.