School: GuoLin Elementary School
    Taoyuan, Taiwan, Taiwan

7 students, ages 11-12 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on August 20, 2011. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): never

Classes and Teachers: GouLin WorkShop

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.kles.tyc.edu.tw

1. Description of Our Community

In recent years, Taoyuan Fishermen Association strives for the funds and expands facilities of fishing ports actively to look after fisherman's livelihood, including: building the north bank breakwater, the sea view corridor, and the bridge across the port and establishing the direct selling centre of fishing goods, seafood street, and the activities of parks directly to households, etc. Now Zhuwei Fishing Port has a scale of a leisure fishing port and is well known in Taipei and Taoyuan. During weekends, many people visit Zhuwei Fishing Port, which helps the economic growth of the fishing village and also increase fisherman’s income. In the future, after Zhuwei Rainbow Bridge and Zhuwei Leisure Fishing Port are established, Zhuwei Fishing Port will become a port with pluralistic function including both leisure fishery and ocean recreational activities, and Zhuwei Fishing Port will become the model for fishing ports of pluralistic function.

2. Summary of Our Project

Zhuwei Fishing Port is famous in Taoyuan. Zhuwei Fishing Port is located at the artificial harbor and the exit of the eastern river, and the waters are vast. The people of Qing Dynasty depended on Zhuwei Fishing Port for trading to the ports of Xiamen, Fuzhou, and Shantou. Zhuwei Fishing Portwas very prosperous at that time. However, in the recent years, the pollution in Taoyuan ocean is very serious. The fishery, therefore, gradually degenerates. Recently because of the efforts of the government and local business, now Zhuwei Fishing Port has a scale of a leisure fishing port and is well known in Taipei and Taoyuan. In our project, we hope to know more about the development of local fishery by collecting the interviews and the information of the history and the fisherman association of Zhuwei Fishing Port, the tour map, and the religion in Zhuwei.

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: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):

There are forty computers for students in our computer classroom. Our students could surf on Taiwan academic net-TANet.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

1. Selecting a Topic and Collecting Sources

After brainstorming, our research group chose the topic: “Fall in love with the beauty of Taoyuan- Zhuwei Fishing Port.” However, we did not know Zhuwei Fishing Port very well. At first, we only knew about touring in Zhuwei, so we spent a lot of time discussing, collecting sources from the internet, book, and other sources, and doing interview with group members’ parents. After discussing our topic and visiting Zhuwei Fishing Port, we began to know more about our research. 2. Our Research Group Members and Discussions

Because our research group members from different classes, we could only discuss during the lunch break and morning break. It was very difficult to choose a good time for all our group members to get together to discuss our research or do the interviews. Because we have 11 members in our group, when we visited Zhuwei to do the interviews, we separated into several teams. After we visited Zhuwei Fishing Port and evaluated our sources, we found that because each team had different point of view, every one collected similar sources and missed some sources. Therefore, we had to contact to our interviewers to do the interviews again.

3. Using Digital Machines

Digital Cameras: Although our teachers taught us how to use digital cameras, some members did not take the right pictures or only got blurred pictures. Fortunately, we used digital camera. Therefore, once we failed, we could take new pictures immediately. Digital Recorders: When we transferred the recoding into the computers, we had to use other softwares to change the form. However, the sound was not clear. After we tried different sofwares, we finally got clearer sound. DV: Although we did make digital videos, the documents were too big. Therefore, we could use them as other sources and did not put them on our website.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

In order to join this contest, we spent a lot time to collect and evaluate the sources. In our research, we learned how to collect and evaluate sources, to make our website, and to use digital machines, and we also learned how to the interviews. We really learned a lot from our research project. After we completed our website, our research project was almost finished. We were very pleased what we had accomplished. We are looking for our research project “Fall in love with the beauty of Taoyuan - Zhuwei Fishing Port”that could help the leisure and tour business. We hope that more visitors could come and visit Zhuwei Fishing Port and the stores in Zhuwei that really helped us a lot when we did our research and interviews.

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

The Combination of Our Research Project and General Guidelines of Grades 1-9 Curriculum

Our research project is led by teachers who discussed about the characteristics of local area and introduced it to students who were willing to join this project. Based on Zhuwei Fishing Port next to our Kon Lin Elementary School, we conducted our project into five subjects: 1. The History of Zhuwei Fishing Port: the development of Zhuwei Fishing Port. 2. The Organization of Fishermen Association: the roles and functions of a fishermen association in Zhuwei Fishing Port. 3. Tour Map: research on the traffic and transportation of Zhuwei Fishing Port and draw the map. 4. Seafood:Introduction to seafood in Zhuwei Fishing Port. 5. Religion: research on the religion of fishermen. Based on the program of local education, our research project points out the characteristics of the tour resources around our school and preserves our research result by recording the interviews. Our research project follows general guidelines of grades 1-9 curriculum and is focused on “Local Education in Social Studies.” In our research, students are all interested in our project and are not forced to learn. From our discussion and research, our students learned a lot by doing the research by themselves. To cultivate students to love their homewtown is very important. It is the purpose of local education to let children to learn their own land about its nature, culture, history, and humanities.

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

Digital Recorder:Record the interviews. Digital Camera:Take pictures of interviews and other sources for the report and the website. Printer:Print sources to other members. Internet:Make online documents for members to share information. DV:Record the process of our research project for members to share with each others.

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

Several teachers connected with local people and arranged the interviews. We separate into two groups to ask the elders from different fields and ask for their help and advices.

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

Our school teachers and headmaster all support our research project. Some give us advices and some cheer up. We are very grateful to two elders: the retired chairman of our school Zhe-Lang Yang and Cai-Long Guo from Zhuwei Fishermen Association. Mr. Yang grew up in Zhuwei and knows a lot about it. He suggested us to interview Cai-Long Guo who has worked in Zhuwei Fishermen Association for many years, and he knows a lot about the history of Zhuwei Fishing Port.

When interviewing Huiquan Ice Coffee Shop, we met Fa Zhou and his relatives who were the owner of the ice factory. In 1960s and 1970s, their ice factory offered ice for all the fishing ports of northern Taiwan. We visited the machines that made ice and learned about the process of making ice. He turned a part of their ice factory into a coffee shop and introduced the history and experiences to us and other visitors. Through his information and pictures, we not only learn the knowledge and history but also feel the passion and diligence of local people.

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

1. Pictures: All are taken by our project members. 2. Recording: All records are agreed by the interviewers and written by our members. 3. Documents: All documents are from the introduction of tourism in Dayuan Village and Zhuwei Fishing Port published by Taoyuan County Governmnet. 4. Documents about the fishing port: All documents about the fishing port are form the interviews or from the internet.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

Most people do not know the nature, tradition and culture of their hometown. They do not know about the history, customs, and relics of their homeland. Therefore, after they grow up, they do not know repay their hometown. It is a pity that our education did not teach them about it.

If people could learn from the local education to learn their hometown from childhood, when they grow up, they would respect their land. From this research project we learned a lot about Zhuwei Fishing Port which we thought we were familiar with. We found that there are so many people working so hard to make Zhuwei better, so everyone should know more about their own land and make the world better.