1. Description of Our Team
Sonia is 15 years old, and is really artistic. In this project, part of her job was to design the website. Thanks to her, we could make a fabulous design for our site. She is a hard-working student, who gets recognized by teachers. In the future, she wants to be a fashion designer who can be famous and known by people all over the world. Won Hee is a 14 year old girl who is an athlete and loves to dance. Also, she always tries her best to get the best possible results. Part of her job was to handle anything that has to do with technology in this project. In the future, she wants to be a part of the society so that she can help poor people, donate to them, and work her best at her major field of study. Ju Eun is a 15 year old girl who has incredible musical senses. In Doors to Diplomacy, she took charge of creating the homepage. She is well-preparing and always works hard at school for her future. Diana is a 14 year old girl who is artistic and Korean, but has lived in foreign countries for half of her life. Her job in this project was to do the writing. She loves Science, and as a result, she wants to be a veterinarian or a psychotherapist in the future. To do this project, we joined together because our interests were the same and we wanted to learn and know more about this issue. Also, we divided up all of the different jobs depending on what each of us are pretty confident in. Although we did our best, Mrs. Brill, who is our only adult coach, gave us valuable advice and led us towards making this wonderful website.
2. Summary of Our Project
Our Doors to Diplomacy Web Project is about animal cruelty, which is happening in the world right now. We chose this topic because we wanted to tell people and make them recognize how serious this problem is. We divided it into two issues from the topic. One is about animal cruelty of mink coats and other fur coats, and how many innocent animals suffer to give us their fur. Another one is about how animals are raised, the seriousness of them getting diseases, and what we are eating. For these two issues, we suggested various solutions so people can put themselves in action in one of those two issues.
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:4-6
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 had internet access problems while we were doing this problem. Internet is pretty slow at our school because everyone uses it. Therefore, the uploading speed was really slow and sometimes, an error popped up. Because of this problem, we had to do most of our work at home and had to meet up several times. Also, because of the firewall in China, we were blocked from several sites. Those were our difficulties while we were doing this project.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
Our team had a few troubles throughout this project. The biggest problem was limited time. Due to a big load of homework and projects from other subjects, it was hard to concentrate on diplomacy. All four of us also had totally different schedules everyday, so we mostly worked individually. To save time, we met each other at lunch time and break to discuss things about our website. Though the time given wasn’t enough, it all worked well. Another problem we had were technical difficulties and internet access. Since we live in China, some websites are blocked. Finding videos without youtube was especially difficult. We finally downloaded some videos from Chinese and Korean sources. Then, we faced another problem. The file’s format wasn’t accepted in the wix web page, which is the site we used to create our website. Therefore, we chose to just link the sources of the videos to a snapshot of it.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
Basically, our purpose of this project is to let people know what is happening to the animals that not only live with us, but also the animals we eat and wear. Some animals are not being treated as living beings, but as a product. Our group is working towards the goal of protecting the rights of these poor animals through our project. We all believe that our project will bring changes to people’s minds and to our society little by little.
6. How did your activities and research for this Doors to Diplomacy Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
In our school, SCIS, there are a few standards, such as communication, knowledge, high level thinking, behavior, learning attitude, and global and community appreciation. I think our team did a good job in trying to communicate with the audience about animal cruelty. By working on this project, we learned a lot of facts that we didn't know before we started. Since it was a topic we all wanted to do, it wasn't that hard to write more than just 'save the animals', or 'they are not treated fairly.' Throughout the whole project, we had a positive attitude towards writing and participating in fighting for animal rights. Through this site, we hope to let a bigger audience know the truth behind what we eat and wear. In these ways, the Internet is very effective. With old, traditional methods, we would have not been able to publish online for the whole world to see. Therefore, I hope future projects are done through the computer.
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