School: Chu-Kuang Primary School
    Kaohsiung, non, Taiwan

9 students, ages 12 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 20, 2005. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2005

Classes and Teachers: Fang Tong-Sheng,Cheng Lee-Feng,Lee Yi-Dai

E-Mail contact:

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

1. Description of Our Community

Our community owns precious cultural heritage, which contains valued ancient architectures and natural beautiful scenery. With the development of Kaohsiung City, the government has invested more resources and funds to build a distinctive tourist attraction that combines tradition and modernity. To attract more tourists, Tzuoying has gradually transformed and the tour industry has been under development in the last few years.

2. Summary of Our Project

Our project deals with the problems brought about by the development of tour industry in Tzuoying, Kaohsiung, which is located in southern Taiwan. We also introduce some famous tourist spots such as the Lotus Lake, Confucius Temple and Chioucheng(the Old City) in Tzuoying. As we know, tour industry can bring in money for our city, but it also brings a lot of problems, like the problems of traffic, quality of life, garbage and so on. We conducted an investigation to find out what people think about these problems and what the government can do to improve them. Finally, we hoped cordially, the residents and tourists; also the other people around the world can realize the beauties between traditional cultures and modern civilization of our community.

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:2-3

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:2-3

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

Our school has two computer classrooms. Totally we have 180 computers with ADSL that connects to the Internet. After school, everybody can send information or discuss through e-mail. The teachers also set up an Internet Forum for students, parents and teachers to meet on the Internet.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

In this project, we have overcome the following difficulties.

1. It was difficult for us to conduct interviews or field studies after class. So we made use of the lunch break and weekends to complete our works.

2. Transportation from our school to Lotus Lake was a problem. We asked the participating teachers to drive us to the lake, and finally Teacher Yen and Uncle Lin promised to help.

3. We had never conducted interviews, designed questionnaires, taken photographs and tape-recorded. But with the instructions and aid of the teachers, we overcame a lot of technical problems.

4. It was not easy to present the audio and video files on the Internet. Teacher Fang suggested that we use the formats of Mpeg and WMV and thus most problems were solved. It's so wonderful to see the guide Video we shot on the Internet!

5. All the data we made, including interviews, questionnaires, and rare pictures, were saved in a file open for everybody to send more data into. One day we found that the data were missing and guessed that someone could have deleted them accidentally. Everybody was very depressed. But Mr. Yen kept searching in every single file and eventually found them in someone else's folder!

5. Our Project Sound Bite

After a series of visits and interviews, we have a better understanding of the value and beauty of our hometown. The future of community should be constructed with efforts and originalities. As long as we make great efforts and do our best in the activities, we are sure to obtain fruitful achievements. We hope that the piece of treasure will be maintained and developed in the future, and some day it will be presented to the whole world proudly.

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

We had a deeper understanding of the local culture through this research and combined the research activities with the major fields of the nine-year coherent curricula.

The research activities that were related to Language included reading, data-collecting, poetry writing, and listening and draft drawing during interviews.

Our research activities that were related to Social Studies included the investigations of the community's history and culture, local agricultural products and tour resources as well as the drawing of touring maps.

We quantified the data collected from questionnaires and set up charts with Excel, and learned to reason logically from history.

What we did in this field included investigating local products, experiencing local living environments, and further solved problems with science principles and views.

The relevant activities included outdoor painting, art design on the computer, poetry writing, and tour map drawing. Those were related to the Art and Humanities field.

Cooperative learning, communication between parents and teachers, contacts for interviews, the design of activities, and field investigations are all in the Comprehensive Field.

Besides, computers and internet courses were taught at school. We applied what we learned to the project and felt that these techniques are very close to our lives.

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

Video recording: Visited locals to know more about tourism in the community.

Libraries, books and the Internet: Looked for information about tourism, history and natural environments of our community.

Mini MP3 recorder and tape recorder: Recorded the interviews and transcribed them into audio files on the computer.

Digital camera, digital camcorders and image capturing cards: Visits and interviews were photographed and video recorded.

Scanners and printers: The scanners were used in image processing. The printers were used in printing documents and photos.

SD card and CD-RW: Used for storing project related files and transfering them to PCs.

E-mail, the school's forum: Relevant information and dialogues between team members, and between the team and experts were sent by e-mail and presented to everybody in the school's forum.

Software: Namo, PhotoImpact, FlashMX, Office…etc.

* All equipment above were supported by our school and our teachers. Our special thanks go to Principal Wu, she supported us a lot.

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

In the beginning, we found the website of 'Lotus Lake Tourists Service Center' and then telephoned Mr. Mai, the superintendent, asking for an interview and for some brochures about the lake. He agreed. With our questions, Mr. Mai gave us detailed answers and benefited us a lot. On the way home, we met with Ms. Wang, a tour guide, we heard of the name: 'Chioucheng Culture Association' which was founded by a group of scholars and teachers who devoted themselves to the preservation of relics. Ms. Lian, the originator of this association, had an interview with us and told us her viewpoints about the preservation of culture, bringing us a new way of thinking concerning the community's development.

In order to know what senior citizens thought about the community, we interviewed retired Principal Lin Chen-Chiang who had worked as a dean and a headmaster for 30 years in the Tzuoying area. He also gave us detailed information and told us a lot of his experiences.

Finally, we administered questionnaires to the locals and visitors to know what they thought about this Tourists' attraction and their personal responses after visiting this place.

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

The city government as well as the community has tried hard to attract tourists by holding activities. However, the number of tourists did not grow steadily. In our contact with locals and visitors, it was found that the tidiness of the environments and the arrangement of sightseeing routes had to be improved. In addition, some relics have been commercialized in order to attract tourists!

What will the construction of Mass Rapid Transportation, High Speed Train influence the community? With regard to the balance between modernization and preservation of ancient remains, whether the scenery of Lotus Lake can be made best use of and well preserved is a topic to be pondered.

Our team wished to bring more people to appreciate the beauty of Lotus Lake without damaging all the relics around. To do so, the government's policies have to be observed. If so, we believe that Lotus Lake will play a vital role among the scenic spots in Kaohsiung.

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

First, we tried to contact Mr. Mai who was head of the Lotus Lake Tourists' Service Center. We solicited our principal to officially invite him for an interview in which he provided a lot of information, including what the government was doing for Lotus Lake and what was planned to do to adapt to the construction of High Speed Train and Mass Rapid Transportation.

We didn't have sufficient information about the history of Confucius Temple and Chioucheng (the Old City), so Ms. Wang, a tour guide from Lotus Lake Service Center, introduced Miss Liang from Chioucheng Culture Association to us. She gave us some other information and food for thought about the impact of civilization on history.

Former Principal Lin Chen-Chiang also told us how the community evolved with time and how he made up teaching materials of local culture.

Teachers at our school offered a lot of help. Miss Nieh, a fine-art teacher, taught us to draw pictures on the spot. Teacher Lin Shu-Rong and Mr. Lin Bo-Yi served as a taxi driver taking us here and there. Mr. Yen Chia-yi, a computer teacher, tried restlessly to get the lost web pages materials back.

Many institutes, parents and locals provided us with written information and pictures about the lake. Even tourists and roadside vendors agreed to be interviewed and made our web pages more detailed.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

In the making of our web pages, we needed to integrate all forms of resources and contents of all fields.

Both qualitative investigations and quantitative data were necessary. So we administered questionnaires and interviewed locals, tourists and some experts who made us see Lotus Lake in different angles.

Besides, through application of multi-media, students served as journalists who could appear on the screen and the web pages interviewing people. This was a brand-new experience and a tremendous inspiration to us.

Since the beginning, we, the participating members, have always kept the concept 'To benefit from teaching and learning at the same time' in mind. This was our first experience doing the project, so 'learning by doing' has always been the philosophy of the team. At the end of this work, our effort was going to be presented to everybody. Whether it was good or bad, that's OUR teamwork, we the whole team would cherish the opportunity of cooperation.