School: Victoria Academy
    Douliu, Yunlin, Taiwan

10 students, ages 13-14 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on February 12, 2012. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011

Classes and Teachers: Kirsten Chang, Henry Su, Tung-Chan Wu, Kuang-Hsing Ou, Cola Han, Katie Huang, Angela Li, Nicole Chen, Amanda Cheng, Dobby Fang, Kobe Wang, Kevin Cheng, Tony Li, William Lin

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://

1. Description of Our Community

Douliou City is the capital of Yunlin County. The soil is rich, the water is bountiful, the transportation is convenient. Borders on Jhushan Town, Nantou County in the east, on Gukeng Township in the south, on Dounan Town, Huwei Town in the west, on Citong Township, Linei Township in the north. The main area of our project is Siluo which grows the most vegetables and has the biggest vegetable distributing center of Taiwan. Siluo is in northern Yunlin, neighboring on Changhua County with the Jhuoshuei River in between. The total area is 4.993 ha., a big community on the alluvial fan of the Jhuoshuei River. Its development can date back to 300 years ago, which has been an important region since early days. Taiwanese famous martial arts and hand puppet shows were all originated in here. Also, the agriculture is prosperous.

2. Summary of Our Project

Yunlin County is famous for its agriculture. In recent years, Taiwanese agricultural products have been challenged by the weather and imported products. The prices of many local products either rise too fast or drop too much or sell too slow that make customers complain, and became a big issue. This makes us get interested in the agricultural production and marketing system in Taiwan. Therefore, we pick “Siluo Fruit and Vegetable Market” as our subject, present situation and challenge as our purpose, discuss the transformation and managing style. We want more people even the world to know about this system, and how they’d like to change. We’ll talk about this market’s dilemma and challenge, and how they make a way. Siluo Fruit and Vegetable Market mentioned on our project website refer to The Siluo Agricultural Marketing Cooperation, and the vegetables dealers, farmers, porters that belong to this organization, talking about its development, and we call it Siluo Fruit and Vegetable Market. The categories of our project as the followings: 1. History and Geography: Introduction to this market’s history and basic information. 2. Vegetables: Where do these vegetables come and go. 3. Four Seasons: Generalize the prices in the past 10 years in different seasons, and shopping guide. 4. Traffic: Discussion on the traffic lines at the market. 5. Numbers: Introduction to the deals in the market. 6. People: Buyers and sellers 7. The Future: Prospect. How to become a distributing center for Asia, and how to raise farmers’ income. 8. Interlude: Introduction to agricultural safety and how far it can go. Siluo Fruit and Vegetable Market is the biggest distributing center of Taiwan. There are wide variety of vegetables and rich humanity spirit which is endeavor and earnest. This precious cultural property shall be succeeded to next generations, and be known by the world.

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:more than 6

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Our project members are not volunteers, but picked 10 from all the 7th graders according to their assignments and enthusiasm through the whole semester. They must complete the assignment carefully each week; some students even offered special reports to be chosen because their family’s business is related. Later on, they must go to the busy market to interview strangers including dealers and porters, and they must be cautious for the vehicles passing by every second to get to know about this market. Our school used to do projects about hand puppet show and agriculture, and we got great results. We feel stressed, but hope we can keep the tradition and go for excellence, introduce the whole nation and the world the importance of local business of Yunlin.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Since we got started, every time we saw Siluo Fruit and Vegetable Market on the news, we paid much attention. During the president election, the prices of agriculture products were way too cheap; and right before Chinese New Year, the prices rise too much. These issues drew the press to interview dealers or farmers around Siluo Fruit and Vegetable Market, therefore, we can see its crucial status in the national agricultural trading system. We used to learn what the world is like simply from textbooks, but this project let us have the first-hand information through professionals and vegetable dealers who were invited by school, or interview with the people from Farmers’ Association and Township Hall, or visit the market in person. We understood what an old Chinese saying means about the wisdom of dealing with people. We’ve learned the reality with our feet and eyes.

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

School arranged a course just for the Cyberfair project to let students know about local business. We have different subjects for this, including Agricultural Products Selling Poster Design”, Questionnaire for Siluo Fruit and Vegetable Market”, “Speech by Mr. Chiang, Vice-manager of Siluo Fruit and Vegetable Market”, “Meeting with Vegetable Wholesalers”, “Visiting Township Hall and Farmers’ Association”, “History Research”, “Development of Study Skills”….etc. This course covers history, geography, biology, economy, humanity arts…etc. Therefore, this project offers us an experience in various fields.

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

projector, phones, internet, books, reports, recorder, DV, digital cameras, scanner, printer, laptop, flash disc, software like FrontPage2000, dreamweaver3.0, PhotoImpact7.0, Goldenwave3.0

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

We did questionnaire at Siluo Fruit and Vegetable Market, and the objects cover vegetable dealers, purchasers and deliverymen. Moreover, we did wholesale market and markets price survey, vice-manager of Siluo Fruit and Vegetable Market’s speech, dealers’ meeting, Township Hall and Farmers’ Association visitation, history survey, posters of new season fruit and vegetable promotion.

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

We analyzed the birth of this market and how it keeps growing from historical and geographical point of view through surveys, questionnaires and interview. We were not just working on its production and marketing system, but got to know the dilemma and solutions. We hope all the citizens and the government can also understand this situation, and where to start to make progress

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

We’ve got so much help from the communities, including the vice-manger and supervisor of Siluo Agricultural Marketing Cooperation, and Siluo Township Farmers’ Association and Township Hall, dealers, farmers and deliverymen from the market. They let us know the local spirit and power. Thank you all!

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

It takes great courage to interview different people. Under such a complicated environment like this market, there are various types of people, some look friendly, some look cold, and some look mean. And we’ve seen all kinds of attitudes such as passionate, indifferent, some even kicked us out because we interfered his business. We were glad when we were welcome, but when we got dirty looks, we could only suck it up. After all, we were bothering them, they were not obligated to be our interviewees. This is an experience of life that we must experience.