School: Ming Yie Primary School
    Hualien City, Taiwan, Taiwan

10 students, ages from 11 to 12 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on February 8, 2002. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2002

Classes and Teachers: Huang Shyh-Yuan, Chang Yu-Che, Wei Lin-Chen, Wang Shu-Hui, Wang Wen-Chin, Tsou Li-Cher

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.myps.hlc.edu.tw/

1. Description of Our Community

Our community is Hualien County. Hualien is located in the eastern part of Taiwan. Its main industries includes farming, marble manufacturing and tourism. Local people has long been practicing agriculture for decades. One of the main crops is sugar cane.

Sugar industry has played a vital role in the local economy for over 80 years. For generations local people are used to the view of the green cane field in their lives here in Hualien County. Taiwan Sugar Corporation is the sole sugar company due to historical reasons. Now it has decided to shutdown its operation in Hualien. This is the last year we can see its final operation. The special fragrance of sugar milling drifting in the air constructs the good old smell for every local people. We hope to renew the memory of the smell that caresses every soul once more.

2. Summary of Our Project

The Taiwan Sugar Corporation Hualien Sugar Refinery (TSCHSR) founded at the Japanese Occupation Period has been existing for over 80 year. Apart from sugar products, it has devoted to multiple investments from real estate, food industry, and orchid farming to organic agriculture and gas stations. It has been successfully in many areas. However, with the entry of WTO Taiwan has to face the impact to local markets.

In order to keep this historical meaning of the sugar industry in our community to carry on, we hope to share our findings and ideas through our project which is also the reason we participate in the CyberFair event. It is our hope that not only we can utilize and learn more skills in computer technology but also apply them to help the community to get a chance to know deeper about the historical meaning of sugar industry in our own community.

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:4-6

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):

3 Servers : Domain Name Server, Web Server, Mail Server 2 Computer classrooms: 41 each with AMD K6-2 550 CPU, 64MB RAM, 4.2GB HDD Administrative Computers:：20 with Pentium133, 16MB RAM, B850MB HDD Academic Computers:Laptop, Digital Projector and 5 Digital Cameras.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

ALL of us have never parcipated in SyberFair and some never known how to make homepage. Therefore it is a great challenge for us. Most of time we learn by mistakes. But we're luck to have Mr. Huang project manager who is also one of our teacher in Ming Yih Primary School to help us. During our interviews with local people sometimes we have difficulties in understanding their Taiwanese accent. With the help of some parents and teachers we over the language barriers. The time is too short. We have to prepare for the mid term and final and the cane crushing opening falls on almost same week. We manage to organize our time to do our project. Some of us don't have computers in our houses. Therefore the only place we can do our project is in school. We did it in school. All the team members are not from the same classroom, therefore we need to over come the coordination problem. We did it. The sugar company is closing. Everyone is busy with their jobs. Hardly anyone had any time to help us. We succeeded in persuading them to give us some assistance. Our school is 50 kilometers away from TSCHR. We have to very efficient in using our resource and in collecting our information. We never failed to do so.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

How unforgetable a learning experience we have! Sugar is such a common thing in our daily life. Who cares how and where it is from! Now we do care. Because we understand there are a group of common people who silently devote their time and energy to make our ice cream possible. It is not just the ice cream which means something to us. It is the cultural, historical, humanitarian and social aspects of it which means something to us, to all of us. We owe something to them. Throgh this project we understand more deeply about our own history and our society and especially those people behind it.

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

Through the diligent fund raising efforts from our principal Mr. Lin Chi-Shen and ceaseless devotion to maintainance from our computer center supervisor Mr. Huang Shyh-Yuan, our school has finally established 2 well equiped computer classrooms for computer technology learning. Every week we have computer class for 3 grader to 6 grader students. It is this project that enables us to utilize our adpoted skills to learn more and learn deeper in other areas. In the area of computer technology we learn to make homepage, digital cameras and scanners. More importantly we learn how to contact other people through telephone calls, design interviews, interviewing skills and editing and publishing our findings. We really learn something specifically on the skills of interpersonal relationship.

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

Telephones both in school and our house: We use telephone very often to contact those uncles and aunts who help us to arrange interviews. Before, during and afer the interviews we also use telephones. Digital Camera: Some of our schoolmates use cameras borrowed from school or their own. All our photoes taken during our projects are from these cameras. Scanners: The scanner we used is AStra 1222S. Our teacher taught us how to the scanners. Digital recorder: We borrow 2 recorders for which we heavily rely on. Printer: We used the printers to print our documents. Recorders: We use tape recorders during our interviews. Software: word98 for text processing, FrontPageExpress for making homepage, Internet Explorer for browsering, Painter for drawing, Outlook express for emailing and FTP for uploading homepage.

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

Due to the fact this the first time of finding appropriate persons to contact, we decided, after our discussion to call help from our parents. Yu Yen-Chen's grand mother knows someone who is a retired employee and agreed to contact this employee for us. Yu Yen-Chen made the first phone call expressing our intention for an interview and a yes response replied swiftly. With the consent of this retired employee Mr. Chu (Grandpa Chu) we met him and had our first interview. Next we contact many other people including members of a community workgroup, sugar cane contractors and handcutters. Sometimes we acquired the assistance from the General manager of TSCHSR.

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

We have received more and more feed back from those people we contact during and after project. A few remarks form those people can shed some light on the impact of our project on the community.

After many staff read our homepage they made the remarked :"We never knew we are so important to this community."

Miss Lu ( A coordinator for our Organic Trip): " The company has decided to give a test of future tourist itinerary. We happily invite you as first group as our guests....."

After the opening the last crushing season opening ceremony, Mr. Lin ( a senior branch manager) said : " No one else like you who had put more attention on this last opening ceremony."

And more ...

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

Due to the lack of experience of interviewing people, we decided, after our discussion to call help from our parents. Yu Yen-Chen's grand mother knows someone who is a retired employee and agreed to contact this employee for us. Yu Yen-Chen made the first phone call expressing our intention for an interview and a yes repsonse replied swiftly. With the consent of this retired employee Mr. Chu (Grandpa Chu) we met him and had our first interview. Next we contact many people including members of a community workgroup, sugar cane contractors and handcutters. Sometimes we acquired the assistance from the General manager of TSCHR.( He once personal act as a receptionist.)

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

We have discoveried so many unexpected issues during many of our trips to Kwang Fu. The overall process of our project enabled us including teachers and students to develop a strong sense of sharing and caring: Findings: 1. It has to be serious to finish our project. 2. The sugarcane field in Hualien is fading... 3. The Innovation and transferation is a must. 4. The hand cutters' umployment problem is devastating. 5. The local economy of Kwang Fu community might be confronted with multipliereffects.

Surprise: An 80 year old refinery is closing and a lot people are going to lose their jobs.

Lessons: 1. We learn the importance of cooperation. 2. We learn to appreciate, share, care for this land and people who live on this land. 3. Caring, sharing and appreciation can be obtained by learning.