School: 'Eudoxiu Hurmuzachi'National College
    Radauti, Suceava, Romania

5 students, ages between 15-18 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on February 28, 2008. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2005,2006,2007

Classes and Teachers: teachers:Saviuc Magdalina,Carciu Loredana,Potapenco Valentina Angelica; Students:Belibou Ioana-Madalina, Puiu Bogdan, Moloce Maria, Stratu Daniela, Saviuc Cecilia

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.cnhurmuzachi.ro

1. Description of Our Community

Our local community is located in Romania , a Central European Country. Situated in the center of the depression with the same name, at an altitude of 360-380 m, Radauti has established its hearth in the confluence angle of Suceava with Sucevita. The oblong form of the dumps (NV-SE) favors the conduct of the wind blowing in this way, and the numerous water surfaces introduce some changes in the normal way of meteorological elements. The average annual temperature is 6.9°C; the average annual temperature of July is 18.2°C and of January -5.3°C. The average annual rainfall is 643.6mm. The clime is temperate. At first sight, an opened territory, the area of the town called Radauti is well hidden in a natural way, by the swampy land that surrounds it. This natural protection, associated with the vast possibilities of practicing the agriculture and cattle rising, have made Radauti, from the ancient times, an adequate place for living (the oldest signs found are from 7000 years ago). The first document that certifies the town dates from 1392, where Radauti was mentioned as the village of Radomir, making part of his properties, from which, as some versions say, it is supposed to have derived the name of the town. Other opinions say that the settlement has its origins in old times and the name “Radauti” comes from the Latin word Rottacenum, given by the soldiers to name the roman garrison in Siret. Under slave influences we assist at a distortion of the original name Rottacenum and its conversion to Radauti, as it appears in later documents. The name of the town proceeds from the name “Radu”, probably a ruler of the local community before the foundation of Moldavia. The oldest certification documentary of Radauti dates from 1413, in a document of Alexander The Kind. At the middle of XIV century, there was already a flourishing settlement here, so that Bogdan I (1359-1365) decided to build at Radauti the main church of the country, which became the center of a bishops. The archeological researches have found, around the St. Nicolas church (Bogdana Monastery) some proofs of human inhabitance previous to Bogdan’s age, which would plead for the existence, in Radauti, of an anterior center to the formation of the state.

2. Summary of Our Project

Our project is called “Smoking, the drug you can escape”. The fast rising rate of pulmonary cancer and the high popularity of smoking at both children and adults should be an alarming signal for the society. Our group is trying to inform the smokers, both passive and active, in the area of our high school , what the risks of smoking are.We are doing this through different projects, in collaboration with doctors, the organization “Save the children”, psychologist , and we hope that our action will both ipress and convince people to give up smoking.

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: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

Although our chemistry teacher, Magdalina Saviuc and all the other teachers involved in this project helped and supported us yet the problems were unavoidable. We all know that even if working in a team can sometimes be fun, it can also be difficult. Every member has a certain rate of working but the tasks are usually divided in equal shares, so as in the end we all worked just as much. We also had problems when talking with smokers about their bad habits, and when managing the data and putting it together.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

This project started as an experiment, a simple idea, but neither one of us knew if it would actually be successful. The impact that it had on the students and teachers from our high school can’t be neglected because the information presented was exact, very well managed and presented and the fact that a doctor had a word to say meant a lot. Some of those present there actually gave up smoking and smoking between the youngsters from our high school isn’t as popular as before.

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

From this project all of as developed both our skills as individuals in a team and we also learnt a lot of new things concerning the health of those around us. We were also able to practice the foreign languages that we learn at school (French and English),and we also learnt a lot about what organizing an activity really means. Our points of view weren’t always the same but we learnt to take in account the opinion of the other members of the team. Because one of the students is not from our high school the web page was a bit difficult to complete because all the work was done on the internet. But as they say “All is well when it ends well”, we managed to complete our tasks and finalize our project.

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

Because it is a complex project we need a solid basis, and so most of the information was taken from the Internet, from different medical sites, but we also needed a couple of statistics that we got from several books. We used 5 computers, because every member of the team did his work on his own computer, a scanner, a printer and a digital camera to immortalize moments from our activities. To complete the web- page the following programs were needed: Dreamweaver MX 2007, Fireworks MX8 2007, and SwishMax .For our presentation in the main hall of the high school a laptop and an image projector was needed and we got them from the chemistry lab. Every device had a role but the most useful tool was the Internet and our computers because without them our project wouldn’t have been complete.

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

To complete our project we collaborated with the local hospital but that wasn’t a hard part because the doctor involved was a parent of one of the team members. We also collaborated with a psychologist who is also our psychology teacher and with a representative from the organization “Save the children” with the help of some of our colleagues that participate in different activities that usually take place there. There is a funny: During our preparation for the activity in the main hall(we were arranging, drawing several posters with the help of our arts teacher)a member from the local newspaper came and asked what we were doing, she also asked several questions about our activity. We were impressed because our work wasn’t yet finished and she just came there without being called by anyone at all. We felt great, and that event was very important for us because it stimulated us by showing that people were interested in what we were doing.

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

The main part of our activity took part in the area of our high school and was represented by an exhibition, a power point presentation and the opinions of our collaborators. The students present there and not only them learnt a lot of things about smoking, from “History” to “How to give up” and were impressed by the number of diseases and deaths caused by this smoking. Our web page helped the students that weren’t present at our activity to contact information about our project and also learn a lot of new things. Our objective wasn’t to convince people not to smoke, but to show them what the risks of theirs actions are, and with think that in the end our activity was a successful one.

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

Most of our classmates helped with the realization of the exhibition. Every student from our class had a task and they all helped by bringing posters, drawings and several articles about smoking. And because of that we want to thank them all for helping. We would also want to thank Mrs. Lacramioara Belibou, lung physician for sharing her experience as a doctor with us and informing us about the risks of smoking. We were also helped by Mrs. Carciu Loredana, French teacher ,and by Mrs. Potapenco Valentina English teacher ,who revised our translations and for that we would like to thank them both. The member from the organization” Save the children” also had an interesting point of view, and Mrs, Botic Narcise who analyzed smoking from the psychological point of view, and we would like to help both them and all those who responded to our invitation and were present at the activity. Thank you all for helping and supporting us.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

There weren’t any surprises, even so, we learned a lot of new things about smoking, about the fact that nicotine dependency is in medical terms “a mental condition” and that a great percent of the deaths in the World is caused by smoking. We also learnt that even as a passive smoker one can develop cancer and other diseases caused by smoking , and that even if smoking is “a trend” in our days we have to fight it.