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1. Description of Our Community
Ningxia Province was one of the birthplaces of Chinese Civilization. In the Paleolithic Age thirty thousand year ago, our ancestry had lived here which could be evidenced by the original inhabitants of the Tunnel Cave. In the Western Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian came to the Westfield as a legate, and then the Silk Road passed through the south of the Ningxia Province, so it became the important highway and the center of material distribution between the West and the East. In 1083, Yuan Hao, the chief of the Tangut founded the Western Xia Dynasty. The Emperor’s tomb of the Western Xia Dynasty could be compared with the Pyramids in Egypt. In the long history of the Ningxia, various cultural relics were reserved. In the Yinchuan strict, there was Chengtian Temple, Haibao Pagoda and the Western Xia Emperors’ Tomb; in the south of Yinchuan, there was 108 Tower, Zhong Weigao Shrine, Shapotou and Tongxin Mosque; there was the Sumeru Grotto in the Yuanzhou district and there was Wudang Temple, Tianzhou Tower and Yuhuan Pavilion. The Ho-lan Mountains in the ancient time was the area of living and working of the northern minorities such as Hun, Sien-pi, Turkic, Ughur, Tubo(ancient name of Tibet), and Tangut. It was them who carved their living scenes on stones in the Ho-lan Mountains.
2. Summary of Our Project
Since the ancient time, the Ho-lan Mountains was the area of living and working of the northern minorities—Hun, Sien-pi, Tolos, Turkic and Tangut living there in succession. Although some nationalities disappeared, migrated or changed, their glorious events, grand historical process, tough battles, even the various cultures and outstanding intelligence and imagination were all reserved on the stones. The unforgotten paintings were the rich cultural relics for offspring. The petrograms, also called “Rock Newspaper” or “History on the Stones”, were the evidence of the history. The Ho-lan Mountains petrograms were carved on hard stones with simple tools by the minorities who lived on the grassland. The petrograms of different times could be distinguished through their contexts and carving skills. The petrograms were the real record of humane social life and working in certain time, and also reflected the simple and primitive living style of the ancient people. For thousands of years, the petrograms were silently staying on the cliffs of the Ho-lan Mountains, reflecting the outstanding tradition of Chinese Nation. There were various images of the petrograms: the running horses, the marvelous bison, the dancing farmers, the hunting herdsmen, the hovering eagles, the ferocious tigers, many kinds of sheep in different emotions, the matches of hunters and other living scenes. It was so vivid that people may imagine the real situation. The Ho-lan Mountains petrograms was the key protected object in the country. In 1997, it was listed in the Informal World Heritage List by the International Petroglyphs Committee of the UNESCO, and in April 2006, it became the world cultural heritage. It was listed in the first preliminary list of Chinese national natural and cultural double heritage by the Construction Administration in January 2006. In April 2006, it was honored as “one of the fifty sites in China where the foreigners deserved to visit”.
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:dial-up modem
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):
The Computer of our school, the allocation relatively falls behind, operate, the speed is strange slow.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
1. There were few chances for students to use computers. We had many courses in the day time, so we did not have time to practise. Additionally, we were not allowed to go into the computer classrooms, even to suffer on the Internet. There was no computer at home, either. In this way, we almost had few chances to be familiar with the models of websites, which we knew a little through Mr. Gong Kuipeng teaching us. 2. The computer equipments were backwards. The computer speed was rather slow when used because there were many computers needed connecting with lower configurations. Sometimes, it would spend a long time in uploading a picture because of the slow Internet speed. In this way, we organized the documents and pictures at school, which Mr. Gong Kuipeng took home every afternoon to upload them to the Internet. 3. There were a lot of troubles during the precession of interviewing and studying. In the weekdays, our counselor could not bring us to research because he had much other necessary work to do in the school. We had to make full of the weekends and the National Holidays. When we went to the administration office of Yinchuan petrograms for the first time, the officers refused to receive us on the pretext of busy working. After negotiation, our counselor and Gong Jingxu were allowed to interview; however, we could not get useful data. 4. The time was limited. There was only two months to prepare this match, while our semester began on September 1st. We organized the team, decided the theme and made plans quickly, so we had little time to analyze what trouble we would encounter and to figure out the primitive outline and arrangement of our website. 5. There was a problem of outlay. Our theme was “the paintings carved on the stones”, so it required that we had fieldwork in the Ho-lan Mouth of the Ho-lan Mountains one hundred km away from our school. The bus ticket was 46 Yuan for each, the entrance ticket was 60 Yuan for each, and the half price was still 30 Yuan, additionally, we must spend extra money eating and drinking. In order to accomplish the match favorably, with the persuasion of our counselor, we went there finally. However, we did not have lunch until we got back home that day.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
we profoundly realize a truth: There is no difficult thing in the world, as long as you want to work hard on it, everything can be achieved. We believe this match can benefit us a lot.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
The goal of the quality-oriented education was to let students know how to learn, live and collaborate, and to train cultural literacy, ability of organization, democratic consciousness, folkways and International concept. We took the Ho-lan Mountains petrograms—the cultural relic of Ningxia Province as research object. Through the collecting, systemizing, editing and making of the material, we hoped students could get touch with the society and take part in social practice instead of studying in class all the time, in order to improve students’ ability of social practice, collaborating and exploring. What’s more, we hoped students learned how to study and research a special theme under the guide of teachers. So in the procession of study, besides displaying the achievements, what we hoped was that through this study students would know our long history and many cultural relics. What we hoped more was that students established correct value of life and world, purified their souls, got touch with beautiful things and contributed for the hometown. We chose the Ho-lan Mountains petrograms as the theme, combining with the history, geography and culture of Ningxia Province and integrating the Chinese writing, history, geography, art, computer technique with administering and designing websites and social communicating, to learn more about the history, custom, geographic situation, economic development and the protection of heritages of Ningxia Province. Through researching, we knew a lot of knowledge which could not be learned in class, such as the history, discovering process, current researching situation and protective measures of Ningxia petrograms and the hard-working of officers. Simultaneously, in the process of thewhole activity, we encouraged, helped and communicated each other, so we not only strengthened our friendship, but knew the spirit of team work. Additionally, we also knew that we should decide what we did. During this process, we got much selfless help from others, which required us that we helped and took care of others when in need. However, what we should learn was much more. Generally, we reached the goal in this activity that learning how to discover, study and collaborate.
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