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1. Description of Our Community
Situated at heart of Luzon Island, 80 kilometres south of Manila, our San Pablo City community is more of a farm community rather than that of a city. Our “Bayan” or the city proper has a typical “pueblo” setting where it hosts major edifices for trade, commerce, educational institutions, religion and governance. “Bayan” is surrounded by mountainous regions of rainforest ecosystems usually called “Ilaya”
But most of our people dwell in what we call “bukid” or the farmlands of coconut, rambutan, lanzones or rice fields. Families in farmlands are living of a typical rural life. The father heads and provides for the family, mother cooks, and children helps after school is their typical day. Fiestas are religiously observed (pun intended) as a sign of appreciation to their patron saint for a bountiful harvest.
Some of our people are pursuing their “Filipino dream” of taking chances to work abroad. In line with this, most of the students are also gearing their education towards working overseas. This creates reaction to educational institutions to cater these degree demands of which are dependent to the global workforce demands.
We are blessed with fertile land to till, potable fresh water sources, blooming flora and a diverse fauna. We are blessed with natural resources that can sustain our population. Our community also homes a variety of talented artists of different fields from visual arts, to music, and even theatre arts.
Sad to say, some of our people inherited the patriarchal culture. In some way, people have develop a thinking of “Siga” (bully) should be respected. Also an attitude of “one-time-big-time” gave way to laziness and greed. Out of school youth are growing in number. Drug addiction is becoming a social problem. Our community is unbecoming and will continue to if actions are not done.
2. Summary of Our Project
Our generation is facing a fast approaching environmental catastrophe. We have our issues on global warming, ozone layer depleting, and bio-diversity diminishing. On the local side, our lake waters are fouling, rainforests are turned into an expanding dumpsite, and coconut plantations are massively being deforested. These issues need eminent attention. Life giving systems of nature is failing because of human activities. Most of the people still are taking for granted the importance of our environment. They are numb to the effects of its gradual degradation. People lose their concern to the other parts of this living system.
This site is a digital information tool about our community ecosystems. It will discuss the effects of human habits that put strains to our ecosystems. There are three parts that addresses local environmental concerns of our community.
The first part will tackle issues regarding the aging of our lakes. This process is also known as eutrophication. This will show what causes eutrophication in which is hastened by human activities.
The second part is the issue on constricting rainforest areas because of encroachment of dumpsites. This will try to explain that areas are becoming useless because of increasing volumes of trash produced by our city. This will show problems regarding solid waste management and discuss some government programs on this issue.
The third part is about the deforestation of coconut plantations. This will talk about agricultural lands that are being converted to residential areas. Thus, coconut plantations are cleared, making a deficit on source of raw materials for local industry.
The site will try to consolidate these issues for the general public to be aware of. And hope will join forces to take an active resistance against wrong practices, and then enjoy the passionate existence with our nature.
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:1
C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection
D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:more than 6
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
The problem on saving our nature resources is we have to have resources ourselves. Resources like time, materials, financial support are needed to fulfill this project.
Time is a resource that has great demands we the students who has pressures of deadlines of school works, also team came from different barrios even from different towns. We therefore have set meeting after school and before 4:30 pm.
Also materials that we need to present our case is not available. No previous study is done that we can use to support our hypothesis.
And lastly, these projects need some finances. Some of expenses like photo copying of documents, ride fares etc. are shouldered with our own pockets.
But solving this problem help us to learn the discipline on scheduling budgeting also, we learn to be creative a resource in making this project.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
Cyber fair made us to be aware of the present conditions and situations of our community and our environment as well. It gives us a new clear perspective that our environment is our only habitat and our only life support system. It broadens our understanding on how our ecosystem works made it clear to us that we humans are not on top of things, living or non-living, but we are just a part of a complex living system.
This learning will become more relevant the moment it causes people to make necessary actions to do their part. Once collaborative ideas is translated to united action, and more people learn about its essence, people will begin to live in unity, all parts of nature will live in cooperative existence.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
Our project is addressing the global concerns of environmental degradation. As members of the youth sectors, as the heir to this planet earth, we need to be aware on current global as well as the local environmental issues. It is also for the people to learn the science concept so that they will know and be part of the solution.
Our school curriculum is more relevant to local community. Science topics in school is oriented on local issues. The project's category, environmental awareness, was also very familiar to us because part of our local scientific issues of concern. We have a grasp on those science topics discussed in this site..
What we have learned from this cyberfair project is pausing for a moment and stepping back to see the big picture on how our nature is giving life. We understand that we human beings are just a tiny part of our ecosystems. We need to follow its laws and be influenced by how it functions. Also, this project practiced our science investigative skills. We have to back our theory with concrete data. Our statements should be supported with facts and figures. We have to do research and appropriation of scientific knowledge to local concerns. By doing this, we had a deeper understanding and became more credible in influencing people.
Using the Internet for teaching and learning has been more effective than traditional methods because in surfing the Internet an individual can get all the information we need. Learning is easier because it is full of modern ideas than traditional method. But still we need to learn some traditional ways because most government offices are still working in a traditional framework.
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