School: Taipei Municipal Shilin Junior High school
    Taipei, N/A- Does Not Apply, Taiwan

10 students, ages 14 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 8, 2018. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2018

Classes and Teachers: KUAN-CHOU SHIH, I-YU HUANG, YU TSAI-NING YU

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.sljh.tp.edu.tw/enable02/

1. Description of Our Community

Early aboriginals were driven away by the eerie sulphuric steam. During Japanese occupation, Hirada Gengo opened up the first hot spring hotel “Tiangouan” and many others sprung up. Now, Beitou is the noted home of hot springs in Taipei area and also the most convenient one. By bus and the MRT, students of Shilin Junior High School spend only one to two hours on the traffic. Taking a hot bath in Beitou is also a special memory for many of us.

2. Summary of Our Project

In this project ”Magic Water, Beitou Hot Spring”, we explore Yangmingshan National Park to gather information about Datun Volcano Group, including its geological history and volcanism. To understand more about hot spring industry, culture, and local stories, we also introduce the features of this local specialties to people through research interview with local cultural workers, hot spring owners, and residents. We would like to invite more people to treasure the valuable natural resource while enjoying the warmth of the hot spring and the beauty of a knowledgeable, relaxing trip.

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):

Our school lab provides computers and internet for us to search for informations on the topic. On holidays, we use our computers at home to organize materials. Line, facebook, and emails are useful and time-saving media for our teamwork.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

This project has lasted for two semesters. During the period of time, we had to face a lot of challenges, like unstable weather conditions and how to balance the project schedule and our studies. To complete our outdoor investigation, we rescheduled several times because of the weather. In our investigation, we visited hot springs, historic sites and tourist spots in schooldays’ afternoons, so we needed to spend extra time on make-up classes, ask for classmates’ help and borrow their notes. Due to the limited hours in the afternoon, we went there many times for this project. Some places only allow us to visit by appointment, like the Volcano Observatory and Longnaitang Hot Spring. Luckily, with teachers’ help and our teamwork, we conquered all difficulties and gained great confidence. The more difficulties we overcame, the closer we got to the completion of the project.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

In this project ”Magic Water, Beitou Hot Spring”, we invited students, teachers and parents from our school and community to participate in our promotion in the annual school fair. In the investigation, we also interact with tourists, Beitou residents, tour guides, cultural workers through interviews. On our school website, the films and documents we shared in English can maximize the spread of influence for people around the world.

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

Language (Learning) Area: Reading books and visiting websites on hot springs are necessary works for us. To interview the hotspring owners and visitors, we learn to prepare materials for the interview. Oral expression is also an important task in a successful interview. Mathematics (Learning) Area: Questionnaires on commom knowledge about Hot Springs were conducted during our school fair, and we use Excel to organize data and show our survey with graphics.

Science and Technology (Learning) Areas: Hot springs are natural resources in our daily life. Temperature and pH value measurement helps us learn about hot springs. Whether the hot spring owners pump underground water excessively is an important issue we cared about. In order to keep record, we learn to use the digital camera to videotape the whole investigation and interview.

Integrative Activities (Learning) Area: Some of us are assigned to drawing and some are assigned to writing. In this teamwork, teachers give us different tasks according to our traits. This process increases our ability of cooperation.

Social Studies (Learning) Area: We gained new knowledge about volcanos, hot spring history, and sources of heat through books and films, and it changed our misconception about them. Cultural property preservation and rescue show cooporative power from its neighborhood, and we are amazed by that.

Environmental Education (Learning) Area Through this activity, we then realize the deficiency of hot spring resources. Some hot spring owners pumped too much underground water for their business and worsened the environmental problem. Now the government is commited to enforce the law and regulate the hot spring owners more strictly. All these efforts help sustainable development of the valuable natural resource.

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

Our school provide almost all of the tools we need for this project, like computers, a digital camera, a video recorder, a printer, a scanner, etc. Computers and the internet are the most valuable tools for us because we used these tools and authorized software to organize documents and films and make the web page for our project. We also used smartphones to make appointments with interviewees and contact with tour guides and Beitou residents. In addition, the digital camera and the video recorder are quite useful because they captured valuable moments of the investigation.

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

In the seventy-first anniversary of Shilin Junior High school, we set up a booth and used posters to promote the knowledge about hot springs and introduce popular tourist spots in Beitou. We also design questionaires to collect students and visitors’ ideas about hot springs as a reference for our project. After our introduction, almost all questionaire participants could answer our questions. This activity helped increase their concept about hot springs. Over ninety percents of them are willing to experience Beitou hot spring and put this in their future travel plan.

Besides, in our outdoor investigation, we needed to contact with hot spring owners to make an appointment for our visit by email and phone. When we visited Beitou, we consult teachers and tour guides in the tourist spots. In the face to face interview with hot spring visitors and residents, they are surprised about our concern for this natural resource.

In addition, we share our investigation and interview on school website and facebook. Pictures, vidoes, and documents on them are all valuable records and beautiful memories for all of us. Our project on school website is an easier access to knowing Beitou Hot Spring through our project by the website.

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

Our project is a permanent settlement in our school website. We have collected and organized valuable informations about Beitou hot springs and showed them on this website. For tourists, we prepared knowledge of safety precautions before they bath themselves in hot springs. We also designed itinerary of Beitou historic sites and tourist spots with introduction of its cultural background and history. Beitou hot springs and its community need our attention and care by visiting and promotion, and humanistic solicitude was shown in our interaction with the residents there. This project doesn’t only present our care about natural resources in Beitou, it is also a useful promotion when we aim at recruiting more people to join us.

In addition, in our annual school fair, we set up a booth, made posters to share our experiences and knowledge about Beitou natural resources and historic sites. We also designed questionaires and collected more than two hundred ones from schoolmates, students, teachers, parents, and visitors from our community. This activity is an important promotion for Beitou natural resources, and we will keep doing this in our school fair annually.

In the meanwhile, we designed English tour guide films on the topic of Beitou natural resources on youtube, facebook and our school website. People around the world can see valuable pictures, films, and English tour guides through these media. The tour guide topic includes famous tourist spots like Liuhuang (Sulfur) Valley free foot bath area, Longnaitang Hot Spring, Xinbeitou Train Station and Beitou Hot Spring Museum. It also includes Wei Shu Hospital who trains some of their patients to be tour guides and owns a sheltered workshop. And, Peitou Lizen Association, an important community in Beitou, helps promote the knowledge of Beitou cultural development and history, is in our list of English tour guide film.

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

Most CyberFair teams need lots of advice and help to complete their entry, and so does us. To promote knowledge about Beitou hot springs, we set up a booth, made posters and designed questionaires in the seventy-first anniversary of Shilin Junior High School. In the school fair, we introduced our project to visitors, and collected two hundred and fifty-two questionaires from students, visitors, schoolmates, teachers and parents. They showed great support for our project.

Before we started our outdoor investigation, we seached for important historic sites and tourist spots in Beitou and Yangmingshan National Park through the Internet and books, and put them into our schedule. In our investigation, we visited Taiwan Volcano Observatory Tatun, Beitou Hot Spring Museum, Shan-Yang Lyceum (Former Beitou Branch of Taipei Army Garrison Sanatorium), and Xinbeitou Train Station. They all have professional tour guides to help us get better understanding about Beitou. Some of them are volunteer workers. They also shared films with us. In addition, in Long Feng Gu and Leng Shui Keng, our science teachers explained the details to us, including its history and environment. And, in a two-hour interview, Longnaitang Hot Spring owner shared the background of its building with us. All of them are great help for us to increase useful knowledge about Beitou and its hot springs.

Besides those tour guides and hot spring owners, tourists’ experiences and opinions are helpful, too. In Liuhuang (Sulfur) Valley foot bath area, we interviewed visitors when they bathed their feet in the free and comfortable hot spring. Most of them came here for the healing power of the hot spring, and they shared their love and knowledge about it with us.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

A hot spring could be just part of our itinerary, a bath taking in a comfortable pool of hot water. However, there are a lot of more interesting aspects for us to discover. In early residents’ imagination, a steamed hot spring is mysterious, so they named it “Patauw”, meaning “witch.” Later, thanks to Hirata Yuen, people nowaday can enjoy the valuable natural resources after his help for the development of Beitou Hot Spring. Besides its business and recreational value, the issue of enviromental protection started to draw our attention because of some people’s excessive use of the hot spring resources. Also, in the investigation, we interviewed Peitou Lizen Association to get a better understanding about the local cultulre and history which amazed us. When we furthured our visit to Wei Shu Military Hospital, its therapists and clients who was trained as tour guides are surprised about our attention to them. The aspect of humanistic solicitude of our project was expanded due to this experience.