School: Xing An Elementary School
    Taipei, , Taiwan

13 students, ages 11-12 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 15, 2013. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2008

Classes and Teachers: Hsin-mei Lu

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.haps.tp.edu.tw/

1. Description of Our Community

XingAn elementary school is located in Daan district of Taipei where lots of outstanding talents and cultures gathering, business activities flourish and well developed transportation system. Families of the majority of the students can also offer abundant resource for their children. The school’s centralized kitchen provides daily lunch menu with 4 different dishes, soup and fruit. However, the nice look and taste dishes possess one of the hidden issue of the arth - food waste.

2. Summary of Our Project

The kitchen waste becomes obvious after school’s centralized kitchen start to operate in 2011. We can see “a lot of” daily kitchen waste, but we do not know exactly 'how much' is the waste. It is until after the weighing test data collected in one semester. A striking and deploring data came out. We were so surprised that we outcry with 'wow! wow! wow!'. It takes only a few second to drop daily leftover of the meal, however, what we regard as a junk can sometimes save the poor children and the hungry people. From introspection and real action 'dig dig dig!', we explored the secret in the kitchen waste barrels, and personally engaged the reduction of food waste. It is difficult in the beginning to start with. Especially being in the rich environment where wasting seems a habit. However, everything needs a start, we hope, through this topic and school courses, the food waste problem can be serious deal with. If we can promote this awareness to schools and every family, it will become a good habit in a long run, and the earth will get a little respite!

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

We were not familiar with the applications of the computer software, so we needed even more time to learn and work on it. Most of the team members have after school curriculums. It was difficult to have full attendance group meetings. Therefore we had little time for group discussion. However, those who were unable to join us were self-motivated to catch up with the progress of the rest of the team. From this, one can see that all team members are quite motivated. We had many interview opportunities. In the beginning we were a little shy, and were scared to raise questions. But, after some experiences, we can now express ourselves fluently. In fact, even our interviewees couldn’t help but compliment on our good work.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

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

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

1. Telephone - Contact between team members, contact between team members and interviewees, arrange time of interviews. 2. Single rifle projector – Concept Clarifying and topic discussion 3.Scanner – Scanning of students’ creation of poems and pictures 4. Video Camera, Digital Camera 5. MP3 and Recording Pen – Sound recordings during interviews. 6. Computer Software: DreamweaverMX & MX2004, PowerPoint 2003, PhotoImpact 7.0 & 11.0, Word, EXCEL, NAVO Make interview outline, survey and questionnaire, and website 7. Library: newspaper and magazine 8. Survey -- Questionnaires

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

We set three objectives for the project. Our first objective is to divide the work between group members, collect information, and interview subject related personnel. Our Second objective is to incorporate all these information into a website and through it share Cyberfair, this interesting yet meaningful activity with everybody. Our third objective is to tell the people of the world that the people of Taiwan are friendly and we would treasure the environment.

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

The collecting of information seem like an endless journey. In fact, the topic can also extend to other environmental issues which we had to do a lot of discussing to get to the focus of the project. Our teacher also had to spend a lot of time to assist us on the collating of the collected information. Apart from that, the amount of food waste we have is astounding, and regretfully this problem has not received much attention. Although, there were small accomplishments, but we still hope that this cause will be an everlasting seed of hope and that the concept of food waste reduction will gain more recognition.

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

The students and teachers of the grade six classes took part in a four months food waste reduction Competition. School nutritionist provided information, gave a guided tour of the kitchen, accepted interview from students, promoted other classes to take part in the measuring of food wastes, and redirected the team to the pig farmers for an interview.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

Interview questions must have rapport. It is not only done for the consideration of the interviewee but also to help the interviewee gather his or her thoughts; hence, make it easier for them to answer the interview questions, which coincides with our expectations. Apart from that, we discovered that we must complete the work our teacher assigned to us on time. This time we almost missed the project deadline! If we missed it, all eight months of hard work would be for nothing. Even though we had to attend school classes and after school curriculums and we had little time to work on the project, we tried our best to find time to do group discussions, and write afterthoughts. We all valued this opportunity to work together. What other surprises did we discover? During the food waste reduction competition which we planned, we noticed a lot of our classmates starting to treasure the food they have. We were really touched. We felt like we were teachers. This is a great feeling!