CyberFair Project ID: 7708

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International Schools CyberFair Project Narrative
Title: Reappearance of the Village on Reed Fields - Zhouhou Village
Category: 6. Historical Landmarks
URL: http://librarywork.taiwanschoolnet.org/gsh2014/gsh7708/index.htm
Bibliography: http://librarywork.taiwanschoolnet.org/gsh2014/gsh7708/15.html

School: Lu Jiang Elementary School
    New Taipei City, , New Taipei City

9 students, ages 11-12 years old worked together to complete this CyberFair project on February 26, 2014. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011,2013

Classes and Teachers: Li-chin Li, Yun-yu Liu, Shi-jing Liu

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.lcps.ntpc.edu.tw/

Project Overview

1. Description of Our Community

Description of 'Our Community' Erchong Floodway starts from the south of Sanchong District, goes next to the bank of Damsui River, extends toward northwest, and then gets into Wugu District; however, Zhouhou Village, located in the reserved area for the floodway, had to face the nightmare of relocating the village. Along with the construction of Erchong Floodway, “Zhouhou Village” has disappeared in Taiwan and became a historical term. In 1968, the government announced “Northern Area Flood Control Project” and classified Chou

2. Summary of Our Project

Zhouhou Village was located in today’s Erchong Floodway. Due to the construction for flood control of the government, the entire village was forced to move to another place in 1984. Today, less and less people remember the history and original look of the Chouhou Village. For this reason, we would like to evoke memories of the forgotten history with this Cyberfair project “Reappearance of the Village on Reed Fields - Zhouhou Village”. We hope to help people review the scenery of the simple

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

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

(1) Difficulty finding common available time slots: Most team members have after-school programs or campus club activities after school on weekdays; they often have busy schedules on weekends and holidays too. Therefore, we had to use the early morning study and lunchtime, two hours per weekday, or Wednesdays after school to meet in the advisory teacher’s office or computer lab to work on the project. Moreover, we sometimes asked for leave of absence from the after-school programs and campus clubs to meet for the project.

(2) Difficulty finding historical photos: We hardly found any photos, except the ones from the Internet. When we visited the elders, most of them said they were unable to bring photos with them when forced to leave.

(3) Limits of language: Most of the team members do not understand the local dialect very well. When interviewing the elders, we talked in both the local dialect and official language. Since the poems and songs are written in the dialect, there are obstacles of listening and speaking for us.

(4) Searching for the look of the disappeared village: The first problem we encountered for reproducing the look of Zhouhou Village was the map of the village. We didn’t solve it even after many discussions with the teachers.

(5) Difficulty finding the elders of Zhouhou Village: Not many people around us know people from Zhouhou Village, so it is difficult to find people to interview.

(6)Organizing information: We did our best to search and collect lots of information, including books, masters’ theses, newspapers, magazines, website information, and photos. With so much content and photos on hands, we faced the problem of organizing the data.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

We learned a lot from working on the Cyberfair project, which not only enriches our knowledge and ability, but also gives us an in-depth knowledge and understanding of our history. When reading the story of Zhouhou Village, we cannot help but admire the villagers’ great courage that they dared to speak out for themselves in the period of the martial law. Through the “Reappearance of the Village on Reed Fields - Zhouhou Village” project, the teachers and we realize many things are unpredictable; however, we all agree with the followings: 1)The history of Zhouhou Village must be recorded and known to the public. 2)The tears of the Zhouhou Village must be comforted. 3)The sacrifices of Zhouhou Village for the majority should be remembered by the people living around Erchong Floodway forever. As for merit or demerit, let’s leave it for the future generations to evaluate!

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

Participating in this activity, we’ve seen the growth in everyone. Not only the students, but the teachers also learned a great valuable experience. Through a series of events, we see the students truly put in their efforts; we believe their achievement definitely will be sweet.

The entire activity includes collecting data, reading books, writing journal, organizing webpage content, designing questionnaires, on-site interviews, visiting Forestry Bureau, campus promotional activities, poetry writing, music adapting and recording, and organizing exhibitions. This series of activities improved the students’ abilities in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The students discovered problems during the study of the project. Then they improved the situation or found solutions by themselves, which helped them develop critical thinking, value judgment, and problem-solving abilities.

The students made posters to promote the events on campus, decorated exhibition sites, and adapted and recorded music, which integrated art skills into the events. Also, the design and art of the webpage production built students’ creative and aesthetic awareness and improved the artistic knowledge.

We input the received cosignatory information in an Excel file and used the statistical analysis in math to draw charts and analyze the data. We also applied the knowledge of the scale in interpreting scales.

Through the protests of Zhouhou Village, the students learned the importance of human rights. Through the parade for appealing to build the memorial, the students learned to hold a peaceful and rational civic event. Through the cosignatory event, the students learned to seek support of the public.

Through visiting Erchong Floodway, the students reflect the relationship between human and the environment; they learned the consequences of man-made environmental damage and will look for a better way so that humans and nature can live symbiotically.

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Project Elements

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

The information facility of the school includes four computer labs, the library information center, the 100MB fiber optic network, and several Windows 2008 and Linux servers. The team members’ home computers operate on broadband or fiber-optic network, and we communicate using the school blog, network hard drive, and email.

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

In order for more people to understand the story of Zhouhou Village, the teachers and we discussed the direction of the entire project together, and decided to bring up more responses through the introduction of points, lines, and surfaces of the story. (1) Point Introduction: By using the school’s Internet and TV wall, we did a single direction of demonstration and promotion for the story video. We also utilized the school broadcast to play the theme song of Zhouhou Village research and the recording of poetry to let kids at school learn our research topic through broadcast. (2) Line Introduction: Our teachers and we walked into teacher morning meetings, student morning meetings, and classrooms to do face-to-face and interactive introductions and promotions. We participated in student morning meetings three times to promote the entire story with the project. In order to bring up their interest and excitement with the promotion, we designed two questions to give prizes for, to promote the knowledge. (3) Surface Introduction: The teachers and we held an exhibition to demonstrate all stories of Zhouhou Village in different stages by different colors of boards. We used “Zhongyi Temple”, the belief center of the village, and tassel grass flowers, blooming all over the current Zhouhou village at Erchong Floodway, to provide a more comprehensive experience to all school kids.

The activities held during the exhibition included: (1)Showed the results of story writing learning and model creation for Zhouhou Village. (2)Showed 8 types of small gift cards related to Zhouhou Village to pass the author’s feelings to the villagers of Zhouhou Village. (3)Provided the application of petition of building a memorial for Zhouhou Village to help our petition procedure. (4)Verified theme poetry and theme song to help kids understand the emotion of the villagers at Zhouhou Village through poem and song.

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

In the beginning of the research, we asked our classmates, teachers, friends and families and found out that very few of them knew about Zhouhou Village. Even if they knew of it , they just had heard of it. It is horrible that a village, sacrificed for the well-being of people, is fading away from people’s memory. Shouldn’t we appreciate our safe life paid by the painful prices of the villagers of Zhouhou Village? The eight themes we designed were blooming everywhere at school. The topic of Zhouhou Village flooded the campus. Everyone knew the story of Zhouhou Village. Moreover, in the exhibition, some parents who know the story of Zhouhou Village walked in and rooted for us. At the later stage, some school parents, who have been involved in the Zhouhou Village event, initiatively contacted us through the class teacher to offer help for our research. This impressed us and supported us to walk through these busy five months for the research. When we looked at the Zhonnolgyi Temple designed and drawn by the students for the project, various interesting shop sign designs, and the creative Zhouhou Village design, we knew all teachers and students understood more and passionately participated more on our project.

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

In this activity, we would like to thank the following people: 1.Elderly Interviewees: Ching-he Chen, Che ng-de Chen, Chun-jing Chen, Liang-chuan Chen, Zhongyi Temple Administration, Jia-he Chen, and Chung-hsin Chen. We were able to collect more valuable information through their oral history. 2.We appreciate that they helped us to reproduce the village, President Chun-jing took us to visit the place, Mr. Jian-he Chen collected pictures and newspaper clippings, and other elders contributed their memory through aerial photographs to show us the distribution of the village. 3.We thank Professor Lian-fu Yang of Luzhou Historical Workshop for making a brilliant speech at Lu Jiang Elementary School for our research. 4.Through Professors Wen-ji Li, Yi-chang Chen and Hsian-ching Chen of Jialichen Cultural and Arts Club, we received a lot of valuable historical information and photos. 5.We thank original music creators, Mr. Tung-hsian Chen (lyrics), Mr. Guo-guang Yu (melody), for creating “Missing More Duo With You” for us, so that our music for the website and activities were closer to what we wanted to express. 6.Thanks to Ms. Wu in Aerial Photography Applying Unit of Forest Service for searching for Zhouhou Village aerial photographs in different times, and longitudes and latitudes, back and forth for almost two hours. Your professional manner and patience highly encouraged our team. 7.Thanks to Chief Chung-hsing Miao of the Investigation Division and all staff for arranging a rich and interesting intellectual trip for us to take home full knowledge and warm gifts. 8.Thanks to Teacher Guan-ying Chang of Cheng Zhou Elementary School, one of the editors of Wu-gu Wetlands – Past and Present, for providing us consulting of Zhouhou Village-related information. 9.Thanks to community residents: President Chung-hsing Li of Cheng Zhou Elementary School PTA, Chief Fu-cun Chen of the Volunteer Team of Cheng Zhou Elementary School for helping us contact related Zhouhou …

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

1.Discoveries – Our harvest for this research can be illustrated in the following points: (1)We found the aerial photographs of Zhouhou Village before demolition and after demolition. (2)We found a newspaper clipping book recording the struggling procedure of Zhouhou Village before demolition. (3)We used Power Director11 Wei-li to produce a ten-minute Zhouhou Village story film by using collected photographs and stories. (4)Teachers and we composed a Zhouhou Village local poem to pass on the affection of Zhouhou Village people.

2.Learning: Counterattacking power of nature: Typhoon Gloria brought a serious challenge to Taiwanese people. Whether it was people’s fights over nature or returning to nature, people continue to destroy nature for their local construction. They achieve economic benefit, but start a tug of war of snatching living space from nature. The water conservation expert of the US thought blowing off Shizitou Pass could resolve the flood problem, but they underestimated the power of nature. It floods everyday to warn people that the life in nature needs to be respected.

3.Surprises: Many things change as time goes by. Maybe our memory will be faded away as time goes by too, but we believe traces will be left. When we went to visit the original site of Zhouhou Village, we were all encouraged to reproduce the appearance of the old Zhouhou Village, and use writing and photographs to record these touching facts that people have been searching forever. Emperor Tang-tai-zhong said: “We organize our clothes by mirror, learn rising and replacement of dynasty by history, and learn winning and losing by people.” It is so urgent and important that we need to preserve history.

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