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1. Description of Our Community
Taiwan, across the Taiwan Straits from Mainland China, is an island in the Pacific Ocean. For hundreds of years, many immigrants have come from China and brought us lots of Chinese cuisine and eating habits. Taiwan, known as Formosa, has its fine and diverse cultures. Taipei is the capital city of Taiwan. Our school is located in Shilin District, Taipei which is also famous for its outstanding living environment and marvelous natural scenery. There are Shilin Night Market and National Palace Museum near our school. Many visitors love to visit Shilin. Shilin is a prosperous and convenient place with great cultural features.
2. Summary of Our Project
Kuo Yuan Ye, a century-old pastry shop in Shilin, was established in 1867. Kuo Yuan Ye is famous for its traditional Taiwanese cakes and western pastry. In Shihlin head office, there are creative baking classrooms and the museum of cake and pastry. It is the pastry cultural center. We visited the Shihlin head office and interviewed the staff there to gather more information about the leading pastry shop in Taiwan.
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
E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):
We mainly use our school computer labs to search information for the topic. On holidays, we use our personal computers and iPad to collect materials. Facebook, and emails are often used to exchange information. Data and file are transferred through emails and Google Drive are effective ways for our teamwork.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
In the process of doing the project, we tried to make the pineapple shortcakes by ourselves in the kitchen at school. Even if we had read many pineapple shortcake recipes, we found it important to make sure both of the portions of the dough and the filling are correct. However, after the baking process, there were some maltose bursting out. After many trials and adjustments, we found the best proportion for the dough and filling. That’s the first problem we met. Then the second problem happened when we were planning for the charity sale on School Fair. Because it took a lot of time to make handmade cakes, we could not make lots of cakes in a short time, except for the student club time, we also spent much time at many lunch breaks to make the filling and handmade cookies. So that we could finish making all the snacks we wanted to sell before the School Fair.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
In the process of doing the project, we looked up the information to know about the history of Kuo Yuan Ye, visited the museum, interviewed the staff there, and then experienced DIY class to make the pineapple shortcakes and cookies. The series of activities made us realize more about Kuo Yuan Ye. The most impressive part is the DIY class for making pineapple shortcakes at our school. Our handmade pineapple shortcakes may look imperfect and the taste is not as good as those ones at the pastry shops, but we made the cake skin and filling by ourselves. The experience let us understand it is not easy to make delicious traditional pastry. We have to use good materials and keep improving the making steps, so that we can make tasty and characteristic pastry.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
1.The Domain of Language: From the interview drafts to the process, and the final record arrangement, all are completed and discussed by the students and teachers. While correcting the records, we have to make the sentences and meanings fluent. The process helps us improve our writing ability. 2.The Domain of Mathematics: We compiled the feedback records of cakes-tasting, used the pie charts to show the statistical results, and made the complicate data more obvious with the Excel software. 3.The Domain of Integrative Activities: We searched the recipe, hand-made pineapple shortcakes and cookies, and invited the teachers and families to taste our handmade pastry. We also hold a charity sale on the School Fair to donate our income to a charity foundation. 4.The Domain of Social Studies: We searched the information on the Net and learned the develop process of Shilin and the history of Kuo Yuan Ye. Over the interview process in person, we knew more about the culture of pastry in Taiwan and the challenges of operating a pastry shop. 5.The Domain of Arts and Humanities: The brand name design and the logo of the pastry shop are very important for their promotion. In the process of undergoing the project, we also designed the product description and illustration by ourselves. We knew more about how to decide the name of the product, and to illustrate the image of the product and design the typesetting.
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