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1. Description of Our Community
Huei-Long community locates in the inlet of ValleyTar-Liao between the Lin- Ko tableland and Guei- shan rugged hills. Taiwan had been ruled (occupied) by Japan, Japanese government started to build the north - south highway by excavating the mountain range lied across the mountains of Guan-yi and Yin-Gao in the fourth year of Zhao-Hou dated by Japanese calendar, the year of 1929. The general configuration of the mountain range looked like a dragon shape. Due to that excavation, it gained the name “ Beheaded Dragons ”, thereafter local people felt it was an unsightly name and renamed it as “Huei-Long , a surrounding dragon “. Huei-long is in Guei-shan township of Tao-yuan county and adjacent to Xin-zhuang and Shu-lin where have been prosperous commercial and industrial cities of Taipei County. This is the main factor that accelerates the development of commerce and industry and the aggregation of population in Hue-Long area. Except industrial areas of Xin-zhuang, Shu-lin and Samsung in the neighborhood, there are Long-Hua Science and Technology University, Paul Hsu Senior high and Huei-Long Elementary and Junior high, our school to form a complete educational area. The Cheng-Jan Tao Hall, Huei-long Temple, Guei-shan Ci Hui Hall, and Presbyterian Church constitute a religious centre preaching residents Taoism, Buddhism and Christianity respectively. In this boisterous and changeable developing industrial area, it is very impressive to see residents in this region are still simple, sincere and hospitable. Living in this flourishing town of many cement walls, buildings, there are a group of teachers and children offering their great contributions to the environmental ecology of Taiwan quietly.
2. Summary of Our Project
Under the patronage of Moax foundation, our school has already established the butterfly net-covered patch for two years under the efforts of a lot of teachers and students. Of our initial experience of raising butterfly larvae, our school has set up the posture with the small-scale ecological garden till now. The special topic of this research is mainly regards as a target ecological research on our school butterfly garden and the neighborhood of our school where the ecology of butterflies as well as herbaceous and nectariferous plants are closely observed and studied. We expect through this research program life education and the concepts of protecting and restoring natural habitats and environments can be spread in our school, local communities of Huei-Long and all communities of Taiwan.
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: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):
The computer hardware facilities are sufficient in our school. We have two computer classrooms with new equipment n, and a multimedia producing center for teaching materials. Except that, most of our classrooms are equipped with a computer, a printer and a projector with a screen. Teachers can use internet and multimedia to teach students. Our school has its own network to meet the demand of teachers and students. Our library has computerlized. Additionally, we have FTTB academic network line offered by the bureau of education, Taoyuan county and Hinet ADSL with 2MB download and 512 K upload speed. Our multimedia producing center has a complete set of equipment, including digital cameras, digital cine cameras (DV), scanners, recording apparatus, projectors, and software for dealing with photo image and sound etc. Each of students has a mailbox with a capacity of 50MB hard disk capacity, and over 100 MB capacity for each teacher. All classes and school offices have their own web page, and teachers instruct computer skills and provide students with knowledge about information system and network. Students and teachers do their best to learn using computer and network in order to adapt in the modern changeable information technological world.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
Of the guidance from several butterfly specialists, we have undergone butterfly ecological research for more than two years, however, we have had some following problems in various fields constantly. Luckily we solved them step by step. (1)Time management: Time is uncontrollable to us, a group of sixth graders. Our school holds a lot of activities for us to participate in. There are various tournaments at our school, such as an athletic meeting, language reading, writing and speech competitions, art and talent contests…..etc. After school we attend some supplementary schools for learning more about our curriculum or some interesting courses like playing the piano and other special courses. Although time is so tight, we still need to do some field studies on butterflies and plants, write report, make records, feed butterfly larvae and take care of plants in the net-covered garden. We have tried with all our efforts to manage all our spare time and now we can do all things at an effective rate. In other words, we can manage our own time well and collaborate with each other smoothly and happily. (2) Putting Data and Records in Order: Documentary data and information as well as herbaceous and nectariferous plants we can find are numerous, but they cannot conform to our local environment and meet our needs. Therefore, we accumulate data and information ourselves with the help of our teachers. We are instructed how to raise butterfly larvae, how to make observation on plants and the development of the butterfly larvae we raise, how to observe the relation of butterflies, the plants and environments and even how to cultivate saplings, how to distinguish the species of butterflies and plants and even how to make records and write reports. With our great efforts we have accumulated a large number of data and would like to present our report to share with everybody. (3)Information technology: Web page making and documentary making needs some kind of computer skills to us. The software package like Microsoft Office, Photo Impact, Namo and Frontpage are applied to make the report of our recent research program. Besides the aforesaid packages we learned before, we learn some more computer skills and information knowledge from our teachers in order to present our research report more nicely.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
It is still touching to me while remembering the first time I saw an Idea Leuconoe clara spreading its wings to fly in the school net-covered garden, an forgettable event in my life. I have never thought of that many little creatures can display their splendor in the school net –covered patch with our full-hearted expectation. We all know a butterflies live in a short life circle and end at their most beautiful period. Behind the beautiful impression they give to us, what kind of characters can humans play to the natural environments and ecology? The initial aim for setting up this butterfly garden is for the fulfillment of “Respect Nature and Care for all lives”. We understand that undertaking life and natural ecological education needs to be done together with natural environmental conservation and restoration. In the recent two years we deeply feel the painstaking we have ever paid for this program cannot compare to the hardship of a butterfly larva goes thru its full life expanse.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
In our research plan, we developed pluralistic angles of research contents, including “Language Field,” “Nature, Science and Technology Field,” “Integrated Activities,” and “Life Education” of nine-year integrated curriculum. 1. Incorporate nature, science and technology field teaching; teach ecology of butterfly and the ability to use computer software and hardware. 2. Incorporate language teaching; teach documenting, writing, and data processing abilities. 3. Incorporate integrated activities; teach interviewing, interacting and coordinate abilities. 4. Incorporate life education; teach the meaning of life and care of others. 5. Coordinate with nine-year curriculum; develop school-based curriculum, integrate all learning fields, use technology in subjects teaching, experience research process, demonstrate the products of learning.
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