School: the High School Affiliated to Renmin University
    Beijing, Beijing, China

4 students, ages 16-17 worked together to complete this Doors to Diplomacy project on March 20, 2010. They have participated in Doors to Diplomacy in the following year(s): 2009

Classes and Teachers: Elisabeth Price,Xiaoshuo,Jiaxun,Xinyi,Chen

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.rdfz.cn

1. Description of Our Team

Being in the 11th grade, the four of us came together under the same search for living a healthier life. Our interest in health led us to choose the topic of Organic food, allowing each member of the group to take on a different role in bringing the project together. Xiaoshuo(17 years old), being able to lead and execute, took on to coordinate the project. She helped to inspire the whole team by bringing out creative ideas and also devoted herself into the process of making the website. Jiaxun, 17, is profound in using acute observation and information processing. She efficiently dug out information and combined all the information necessary. Xinyi, 16, assisted the project by finding creative resources and brainstorming new ways to perfect our work. She has transcendent writing skills and scientific knowledge that accelerated our outcome. Chen, 17, is our technical expert. He designed all the flash videos and brought our project into being. Our coach was Elizabeth Price who came from the US and has been in China for 1 year. She corrected our papers and articles which eventually perfected our performance.

2. Summary of Our Project

Our interest in organic food was shown when we heard the news that Michelle Obama invited local schoolchildren to the White House to grow vegetables in the year 2009. Because her purpose was to motivate people to “grow their own”, we dug into information and found out that her botanical pursuits was under the same idea of organic food. By doing research and interviewing our biology teacher, we gradually found out countless benefits of organic farming and its products. This website is designed to raise awareness among people about the superiority of organic products and what we can possibly do to live a healthier life. In addition to the common benefits, we also want to inform people of the contribution we can make to the global environment simply by eating healthier. We see it as our responsibility to help spread the idea of sustainable farming.

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:2-3

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:1

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Because the four of us were in four different classes, it was rather hard for us to get together and discuss the project. To solve this problem, we used the public email to exchange ideas and information. Also, the school work was quite a lot and all of us were taking part in plenty of student activities, which made our team get together even more difficult. We tried our very best to squeeze more time in order to perfect our project. In addition, designing the website was a big challenge because none of us had the experience or talents of designing. We tried many ways to make a frame and changed our ideas several times. But we encouraged each other and finally had everything settled.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

This project has contained a lot of information that raises public awareness of organic food, environment protection and human health. It has provided the opportunity for everybody to acquire more knowledge about healthy diets, and the project has made it possible to help improve the entire environment just in our daily life. It has also created chances to make a difference in the future world!

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

As high school students, we learned a lot from the process of the project. During the information collecting period, we learned to use different ways to get information and classify them. Then, the interviews with some organic authentication organizations also made us realized the importance of preparing in advance, seizing every chance and being polite. During the last part, we developed our designing and computer skills when making our website. Most importantly, we learned the spirits of never giving up, never getting discouraged. We earned the courage to keep trying and moving on.

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

We used 4 computers, 2 Digital Movie Camera, Internet Connection, Flash, Photoshop, for image collection and website design. Our school provided us with a computer and we also used our own at home. We took our own cameras when interviewing and having group meetings. All these tools contributed to our project a lot.

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

We provided our websites to the advocators of organic food and had received much praise. We also tried our very best to advertise the website to universities and high schools in Beijing in order to make full use of our work. We created a website(www.vogue4org.com)to make it more convenient for Chinese students to use. Some of the professors that we had interviewed before visited our site and made some comments through our contact form. This is only the commencement of our organic promotion since we have just finished our website. What we are doing next is to put up posters about vogue4org in local schools and to establish a vogue4org organization using our site.

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

We know that organic food is not yet popular in Beijing, Shanghai and other big cities in China, let alone in remote towns and villages. There are numerous reasons for this case and one of them is the paucity of awareness. This site will certainly make a difference and helps our community to get to know more about organic food. Two of our team members, Xiaoshuo and Jiaxun, attended GYLC in America in 2009 and made friends from all over the globe. They sent the website to their foreign friends and have received world wide complements as well as beneficial comments. Some of them thanked us for providing the information of healthy dieting and showed interests in becoming an organic consumer.

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

Our official coach was Elizabeth Price from Ohio, USA, who taught in our high school. She is our teacher so we invited her to become our coach for this project. After investigated about our project, she readily accepted. We also sent dozens of emails to professors in US universities such as Cornell and Yale. They helped us by answering our question on organic agriculture and providing helpful information about this issue. We searched on the Internet and found contact information of some organic certification centers. After twists and turns, we successfully made appointments with two of them and finished our interviews. Our classmates have also been very helpful. We got pictures of Roots and Shots groups with the help of my classmate Gao Shuang, who was the group leader. Without the help of all these people, our project would not be what it is today.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

During our interview and visits to certification center of organic food, we had many discoveries of how lovely this world is and how deeply our daily life is connecting to what we eat. We also realize every citizen’s relationship with society during our exploration of organic food. We have met so many friendly people who have provided us with useful information of food certification and its criteria. We have also consulted some professor and researchers in university worldwide by mail, including personnel in Cornell and other academic institution of agriculture. They offered series of resources about organic food and appreciated our work a lot. Their help is a key to enrich our knowledge of organic food. Since the keywords of this project are organic food and diplomacy, we have to figure out the relationship of food and society. On a greater scale, the relationship may refer to agriculture and harmony of societies. Thus we have always been trying to study organic food both academically and diplomatically. We have paid visits to supermarkets to investigate the current market of organic food . We have studied the structure of food product in market and have consulted the standards of organic food. Those different aspects of organic food fuse to form the ultimate project. All of our members have realized the essence of organic food is to have a balanced relationship of nature and obey its rules of growth. Any interference of nature’s pace will lead to catastrophic outcome and that’s what we want everyone to share with us.