School: Dimitrie Ghica School
    Comanesti, Bacau, Romania

4 students, ages 12 worked together to complete this Doors to Diplomacy project on March 20, 2008. They have participated in Doors to Diplomacy in the following year(s): 2006, 2007

Classes and Teachers: Teofana lavinia Varareanu, Vladut Severian Iacob, Rares I, Vali C, Paul A,CosminC ,

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://http:/laviniav.lx.ro/scoala/index.htm

1. Description of Our Team

When we were offered the opportunity to be in this competition we thought it would be a pretty good experience but didn’t really notice the advantages that we could get out of it. Not only did we meet new people, but also we learned a lot about what is going on in the world. Due to so much frustration to get everything in on time we were all hurrying each other but we all new we didn’t mean anything bad by it. The way that our team came about was that we were given the opportunity to join the competition. Next who ever signed up had to notify Mrs. Varareanu in which she later emailed us and told us who the team was. Paul and Vali put together the entire website by the help of Mr. Napoleon Varareanu. We would email everything to her and she would put it together on the website. Rares a played a big part in putting the biographies together. Vali and Cosmin researched on global warming issues, as well as putting together the team description. Paul and Rares did the research on global warming causes and effects. Mrs. Varareanu and Mr. Iacob were so much help. We had met in chat room session which everyone discussed what needed to be done. On March, 2008 we had a lot of project meeting in which our website was basically almost done and we reviewed it. We each had the website opened and went page by page to review it for errors, spelling, and for whatever had to be deleted, and or added. We all enjoyed doing this project together. Everyone did their part and even more. Our coaches helped us and guided us all the way through. They supported us in all of our decisions, and is part of what made our website a success.

2. Summary of Our Project

Our web project concentrates on environmental issues of today. Upon extensive research, our group identified problems that threaten in our opinion the environment. Global Warming Causes, Effects, Combating Global warming, are serious problems that not only our nation faces, but has become a worldly dilemma. Our group has identified eight possible solutions to help eliminate some of these problems worldwide as well as individually. In addition to the environment, we discussed in our project about earth history as a possible cause of Global Warming. The main purpose of this website is to inform people of these issues and how threatening they are. Steps can be made to tame these problems, but often it will take the individual to start the ball rolling. We explained what we have already done to stop global warming process and the effects of it in our town, Comanesti.

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:1

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:1

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

The mission of our project is to provide others with knowledge about important environmental issues. The biggest problem we had to overcome was that we had other school projects and homeworks to do so we couldn't dedicate as much time as we wanted to this project. So the work was a little hard. When we started we found out that there were a lot of information on this topic and we had to select what we considered relevant for our project.We don't know if these information are relevant for otherrs too. Sometimes we felt overhelmed by the problems but Lavinia Varareanu and other teacher in our institution were the one who constantly supported us not leting us giving up. In the end everything was solved so we could finish our project.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

This opportunity has granted us many opportunities to grow. Whatever the task be it researching our issue, organizing our Website, communicating with each other or making a presentation, we accomplished it in a professional and mature manner. We understand that our Website may have an impact on others and this is very important to our group. When we look at all that we have completed with our site, we realize how much we have learned and accomplished throughout this wonderful experience. Moreover, helped by Mrs. Magdalena Juncu (head teacher of the school) we created a Project Corner where we publish articles about project. The impact was big. The children from our school wanted to involve in our project. So we proposed them to do somethimg for: to paint or write some lines related to the topics we talk about. Some of their work you can see at: http://www.scoala2com.3x.ro/OurOppinion.htm. Also, we make some promotional materials that we spread through other school in our town. The surprise was even bigger: they (we mean other kids)wanted to join the project. A greatest surprise was that Police Departament from our town wanted to join our project. They facilitated us a meeting with Bacau Police Inspectorate that gave us a lot of support in promoting our project. We also published things about it in our school magazine „Phoenix”. In addition Mr. Viorel Miron- Mayor of Comanesti helped us in printing some promotional materrials that we spread in our town.

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

Firts of all we must tell the most important thing in developping this project was the use of English language. We learn English since 2003. This project put us in situation to use all of our English knowledge. A real support was Lavinia V our Romanian teacher and Corina Apostu (English teacher). They supervised the materials, corrected them when necessary. Also we used our research about Global warming in our school projects ( as History or Geography classes). We work as a team. This made us to become the best friends. We share our ideas, our opinions in order to reach the goal: to have a successful web project.For this reason we should thanks to the creators of this contest. Working as a team was the greatest thing that happened to us. We discovered that lessons could be more attractive if we put some passion in. We also found out that is more helpful to understand practical thing then to learn them mechanical. We found out what means brainstorming or brainwritting. We found out how to conduct a project, what are the phases of a project (thank you Lavinia V.!). Environment issues are a part of social studies, and that's a required class for school. We consider these good achievements. Besides all, we found out ourselves (now, after 3 months) more mature, more self-possesed... We think that Internet is a very good tool to find up to date information. As a learning method, the Internet is more effective than traditional methods due to the fact the learning is centered to student.But, we also consider that the Internet could not (and must not) replace reading and writing, For this reason we consider the Internet only another investigating method that need to be linked to traditional methods such as writing, reading

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

Every member of our team has a PC and a mobile phone (on Orange Network)and Lavinia V gave us her own digital still camera. We had home access to the Internet via cable connection and we consider this an important advantage. We could communicate via Internet (MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger), therefore we consider it as the most impportant tool that we used. We also have some pupilbooks (like History and Geografy) that provided us additional information on the disscused topics. Our school has a library where we found some updated books related to history, perspective or definitions that helped us to better understand global warming facts, effects, causes etc.We also read a lot of national magazines and newspaper that published facts linked to our project theme. One of the most important 'tool' were our coaches that we continously consulted for their advice, opinion. We used Front Page for developing our Web site. Here the most important 'tool' was Napi V (technical coach) who taught us how to build our site. We were taught everithing from opening the programme to publishing the site. Each source, each information was important for us as we specially selected it.

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

Every time you do some kind of research you should always find a way of letting people not only learn about the project, but also let them know how they can help with the project. In this case we have used two ways of allowing people to know about what we have researched and how they can help. First of all, we went to our fellow classmates and made them aware of several environmental issues. Immediately, they wanted to help. We directed them to our new website which offers helpful information. This way more and more students will find out about the major global issues throughout the world. Next, some of the town parks were approached and were told about the global issues going on. Many might ask, why a park? Think about it if they make flyers making people aware of environmental issues then more people will find out about the problems and the website. Some of the parks that were attended were glad that we had approached them because they have their own park clean ups and people that help. We have planned to encourage more visitors to our website for the future is by making pamphlets on the computer.

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

This project represents our effort and a lot of investigation that we realize, therefore we considered very important for us and for our school, because our teachers were the ones who help us to realize the project, even tough we had a lot of extra work to do. In Romania Global warming is so present, so that we understood (Vladut Iacob told us) at NATO Summit that will take place in April 2008 in Bucharest (Romania’s Capital City) a problem to discuss will be Global Warming. Another important thing that make us very proud of our work, are all the goods comments we have received from the people that help us while doing our page, and of the people that already checked or job finished, as our family, teachers, local authorities and even some friends. Likewise, we think that the people that visit our pages will learn a lot of things and also they might find very interesting things we made, our solutions and other important aspect is that they can give their opinions in a way that they would get involved with the problem, so they could understand it better. We also consider our work as a reference page for students that are making investigations about the topics or those who do it because they want to learn more, because we are trying to explain the concepts in an easy way, based on the opinions of some experts in this topic.

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

First of all we must tell you that from the very begining the Mayor of Comanesti – Mr Viorel Miron involved in this project. He supported us and made lobby for us and our project. For this reason we should thanks. We also must thanks to our Bacau County School Inspectorate for their support in developing our project (especially to Mrs. Angela Sterpu - EU Integration Inspector). Many thanks to Bacau County Police Inspectorate and Mr. Dumitru Dobos that helped us in spreading the information about our project. But those that helped the most were our teachers. We are especially grateful with our teachers Lavinia Varareanu, Magdalena Juncu, Petrina Mocanu, Iustina Unguras, Corina Apostu , Laura Vorel and Constantin Spinu. That were the ones that we selected to be our coaches. We have a very good relationship with them, and also we chose them because we know they are very smart and could bring us a lot of help. Lavinia Varareanu is our Romanian teacher and is always trying to help us. She is very demanding with us, what helped us to make better our work and researches . And finally we need a teacher that could help us in redacting correct our work, therefore we ask again Lavinia Varareanu and Corina Apostu , that was recommended by other teacher and we were very thankful working with them. We also must thanks to Eng. Napoleon Varareanu (technical advisor). We thanks him for the patience he showed us and for web design lessons.For the first time in our life we learnt something very useful and also practical. We must mention Mr. Vladut Severian Iacob (Economist - proffessor at Alma mater University) that helped us understand the relation between economy and environment. Those were our coaches during the project and we just want to say them “Thanks for everything”.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

We became more experienced in the sphere of environment and healthcare and with the help of this project we are motivated to do good things for protecting our environment. We discovered that the main thing in working as a team is respecting each other and pay attention to each other’s advices and opinions.