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SiFu Primary School (2026 CyberFair Project ID 8840)
Taiwan,
Hualien County
Official Status:
Final Project: Ready for Judging
Teacher:
Category: 7. Environmental Awareness
We estimate 10 student(s) from 9 to 12 will work on this entry.
Description of Our Community: Our community is located in the Mafu area of Guangfu Township, Hualien County, on the east coast of Taiwan. It is a rural community surrounded by mountains, streams, farmland, and Indigenous cultural landscapes. For the students of Xifu Elementary School, community is not an abstract idea. It is the place where we live, learn, worship, remember, and grow together.
Mafu is a place shaped by both nature and culture. The Mafu River and its floodplain are important parts of our environment. They provide water, habitats, and a living classroom for us, but they also face ecological challenges such as the spread of *Leucaena leucocephala*, an invasive alien species that threatens native plants and changes the riverbank ecosystem. Because of this, our community is not only a place of natural beauty, but also a place where environmental protection has become an urgent shared responsibility.
At the same time, our community is rich in local beliefs and cultural traditions. Renshou Temple is an important spiritual and social center where local faith, festivals, stories, and relationships are preserved and passed on. Through the worship of the Messenger God and other deities, community members maintain a strong sense of identity and continuity. These traditions help connect older and younger generations, and they also influence how people understand nature, life, and coexistence.
Our community is also deeply connected to Indigenous culture, especially the wisdom and life values of the Amis people. Plants such as the breadfruit tree are not simply part of the landscape; they are connected to family memory, sharing, and ways of living in harmony with the land. In this way, our community is more than a geographic location. It is a network of relationships between people, land, water, belief, and memory.
Therefore, when we define our community, we do not describe only one village, one school, or one research site. We define it as a living homeland made up of ecology, culture, and shared action. It is a place where environmental restoration, temple culture, Indigenous knowledge, and children’s learning all come together. This is why our project focuses on “Reclaim Our Land, Battle the Leucaena” as the core, while also including local faith and cultural stories. Together, they show what our community truly is: a place worth understanding, protecting, and uniting for.
Project Description: Our community is located in the Mafu area of Guangfu Township, Hualien. Here, there are streams, Indigenous villages, temples, and the land that shapes our daily lives. For us, the students of Xifu Elementary School, community is not just a word in a textbook. It is the ground beneath our feet, the stories told by our elders, the changing ecology along the riverbanks, and the culture that generations of residents have worked together to protect. The theme of CyberFair 2026 is “CONTRIBUTE & Unite!” and that is exactly the story we want to tell: when children are willing to do a little more for their hometown, and when schools, families, communities, and professionals stand together, even small contributions can grow into a powerful force for change.
The core of our project is “Reclaim Our Land, Battle the Leucaena III.” This is not only an award-winning study, but also an ongoing action for our homeland over several years. *Leucaena leucocephala*, an invasive alien species, has spread rapidly across the Mafu River floodplain, crowding out native plants, altering habitats, and threatening the future of the land we love. Faced with this problem, we did not stop at simply recognizing its seriousness. Instead, we entered the field with experts, community members, and our teachers. Through literature review, field investigations, zoned surveys, and ecological restoration experiments, we tried to find methods truly suitable for this riverbank environment.
Our research team divided the experimental site into five zones—A, B, C, D, and E—to compare the effects of different restoration strategies: “planting with replanting,” “planting without replanting,” and “no treatment at all.” By conducting long-term observations on survival rates, tree height, growth speed, and ecological recovery, we tested the effectiveness of gap reforestation and replanting strategies. What makes this theme especially moving is that it is not a paper exercise. It is the result of children using their time, sweat, and careful records to seek real answers. Our findings showed that **replanting was the key factor in successful floodplain restoration**. In Zone A, the survival rate rose from 41% to 84%; in Zone C, from 40% to 76%; and in the best-performing Zone B, the survival rate reached 88% after replanting. These results confirmed that proper gap design and low-disturbance management can effectively support the growth of native tree species.
This means that we were not simply “removing Leucaena”; we were actually learning how to help the land grow back. Through measuring, observing, and recording, we came to understand that ecological conservation is not a one-time clearing effort, but a long-term commitment to restoration. Protecting the environment is not a slogan. It is the willingness to return to the field again and again, face changing conditions, and continuously adjust one’s methods. This project won a Gold Award at the Pacific Cup, but more importantly, it allowed us children to become participants in the ecological restoration of our hometown rather than mere bystanders.
Yet our story does not stop at the stream. It also extends into faith and culture. Two of our other research groups, centered on Renshou Temple, reveal another kind of “Contribute & Unite” power. The project “The Messenger God Belief of Hualien Renshou Temple: How Snake Worship Deepens Local Ecological Conservation and Tourism” explores how local religious belief shapes residents’ understanding of life, taboo, ecology, and local identity. We discovered that the temple is not merely a religious site. It is also a gathering place for the community, a space where values are passed on, and an important center for cultivating conservation awareness. When the snake in local belief is no longer seen only as something frightening, but as a guardian of the community, the relationship between humans and nature is reimagined. Although this group focused on the Snake Temple and the Messenger God, what it truly revealed was how a community can connect cultural preservation, ecological conservation, and local tourism through shared belief.
Another project, “The Making of a Young Temple Steward: Integrating the Sacred Division of Labor Among the Five Deities of Renshou Temple and the Artistic Creation of the Prince Hall”, approached local culture from the perspective of a young learner. It transformed religious culture into an educational framework that could be understood, practiced, and passed on. By translating the responsibilities of the five deities into “five academies” with concrete SOPs, and by combining artistic creation, field participation, and administrative cooperation, the project created a “triple-win” situation for cultural inheritance, personal growth, and community benefit. This reminded us that local culture is not something that can only be preserved statically; it can also be reinterpreted and actively used by children, becoming a bridge that connects generations and communities. For CyberFair judges, this kind of project offers not only cultural depth, but also a vivid example of how students can transform local culture into meaningful public learning.
As for “Living Kindly: Breadfruit as the Symbiotic Power of an Amis Family Tree,” it adds a deeper cultural foundation to the whole project. Breadfruit is not merely a plant. It is a symbol of family memory, sharing ethics, and emotional connection in Amis culture. Through studying practices such as fruit-sharing, naming, and the collective memory embodied by family trees, we came to understand that a hometown is not only something to be protected, but also something to be understood. It is not enough to battle invasive species; we must also cherish the cultural roots that have always grown from this land. This project broadened our work from environmental conservation into a more complete local narrative: streams, faith, and family trees are all answering the same question—how can we live in symbiosis with the land and pass that wisdom on to the next generation?
The most important achievement of this entire project is not simply winning awards. When children measured tree heights under the hot sun, practiced interview questions again and again, learned to listen carefully to elders, and stood bravely in front of audiences to present their findings, what they gained was not only knowledge. They learned how to observe, question, collaborate, revise, express, and take responsibility. At the Pacific Cup, our results included two Gold Awards, one Bronze Award, and one Merit Award. Among them, “Reclaim Our Land, Battle the Leucaena III” received the Gold Award, showing the strength of a path that begins with problem awareness and grows into real action. But what matters even more is that children from a rural school proved that they, too, can make meaningful contributions to their community through research, action, and creativity.
We believe that what makes this project truly aligned with the CyberFair 2026 theme, “CONTRIBUTE & Unite!”, is that it is not just a single piece of work. It is a collective hometown action completed by students, teachers, parents, community elders, temple members, and specialists. The children contributed their time and curiosity; the teachers contributed professional guidance; the community contributed trust and stories; and the experts contributed methods and support. These strengths were united and, in the end, they not only helped protect our streams and culture, but also allowed more people to see the value of the Mafu community. From battling Leucaena, to understanding snake worship, to discovering the symbiotic wisdom of the breadfruit tree, our four research groups together show that our hometown is not a place waiting to be saved, but a place worth contributing to, protecting together, and helping shine.