International Schools CyberFair 2001
Information About Our Site
Project Overview
Kaohsiung, located in the south of Taiwan, is full of subtropical tint in its weather. It is warm all the year round. In the suburb, you can see the boundless field in the far place as you enjoy the beautiful red flowers and the green shrubs which slip away from you. The gulf and coral coasts also radiate its unusual beauty.
Kaohsiung is a second large cosmopolis in Taiwan. It is famous for the harbor and the heavy industry. The processing export zones, petroleum chemistry, mechanical industry and ship-building industry play an important part in the making of economic miracle of Taiwan.
Kaohsiung has been being an important city of industry in Taiwan for a long time. When we discovered that the Kao-Ping River is not clean, the mountains are no longer verdant and the air is not fresh any more, we finally realized that our industrialized city has not only brought modernization and convenience but also pollution to our lives. In a manufacturing country famous for its high-tech industry, we have discovered that our original natural surroundings are disappearing. A group from south Taiwan has come forth and announced a movement for the protection of our environment. The poet, Dr. Kuei-Hi Tseng, is especially involved in this group.
The greater part of this seminar was completed in our leader's house. We connected to Internet by computer, 56K modem, and the help of our ISP Internet Server.
Through this seminar we encounter many difficulties, especially in looking for people who would agreed to be interviewed. Face-to-face interviews were held everywhere in the Kaohsiung area. In addition, members of our team live all over Kaohsiung and Pingtung. It often happened that once we gathered for interviews or discussion, some were late because of traffic problems or private reasons. In order to avoid this problem, we chose the Kaohsiung city train station as our meeting location. After this we had far fewer problems. Because we believed we could not achieve anything without a great deal of effort, we wracked our brains and did our best to complete this tough, major task collecting interviews. We are glad that this work was achieved smoothly, that we were taught many things, and that we even inspired the encouragement of our teachers and classmates. Taken together, these achievements are our biggest harvest.
When we were finishing our seminar, we began to understand the words of Dr. Kuei-Hi Tseng. He said that it is useless for people to only think up plans without putting them into practice. We realized that everyone must do his job. Although we are not necessarily the most intelligent people around, we know it is the best when we cooperate.
In such a short time, we expended a lot our time and effort to achieve this beautiful dream. Whether we are rewarded or not, the memories we have from preparing this seminar are the greatest treasures in our lives. In addition, we still hope we can continue to arouse the attention of citizens living in Taiwan for the care of our only environment.
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The Kao-Ping River is the main source of drinking water in the Kaohsiung and Pingtung area. However, the severe pollution of the river has made citizens in Kaohsiung afraid of the security of their water. |
Kaohsiung is the biggest city in south Taiwan, and under the pressure of industry development it has become a scene of steel and cement. |
Project Elements
By general consensus, the problem of education in the countryside has been recognized as a major concern by Taiwanese people during the past two to three years. However, we often ignore and ruin the environmental surroundings through our inattention and neglect. We all complain about industrial pollution. But nobody seems to know that the bottle we throw away or the shavings on the ground can be as harmful as what industry has done to our environment. We feel that our ignorance has naturally ebbed from having participated in this seminar. We would never have seen these problems in the textbooks in our schools. We once again felt deeply concerned for this island through our experience in these interviews with Dr. Tseng and his friends. To care about our land is an eternal lesson for people. Visiting Dr. Kuei-Hi Tseng is just the beginning.
| Technology Using | The Utilizations |
| ĄDOral interview | To record the contents of interviews and transfer theminto the voice file computer. |
| ĄDInternet | To take all what we have done by cameras and V8. |
| ĄDBooks and Magazines | Looking for related paper references for unfamiliar material encountered with interviewees. |
| ĄDRecording Microphone | To record the contents of interviews and transfer them into the voice file in computer. |
| ĄDDigital Camera, Instantaneous Camera and V8 | To take all what we have done with cameras and V8. |
| ĄDScanner and Printer | To process the pictures by scanner and print the papers. |
| ĄDTelephone and Fax | Using telephones and faxes to connect and communicate with interviewees. |
| ĄDComputer Software | Photo Impact 4.0/5.0, FrontPage 98/2000, Real Encoder. |
| ĄDNote: Our chool provided us with many of the items above. Thanks to Jiong-yi for his V8 borrowed from his relatives, and Cheng-yu's books bought with his pocket money. | |
First of all, we posted lots of related articles on BBS sites on the Web. At first this seemed like a foolish and futile search. However, the responses were huge. Two which were especially important were from a colleague who worked with Dr. Tseng, and from secretary Chou in the Pingtung country government who had participated in an activity to protect the Kao-Ping River. The dialogue led us to express much curiosity to Dr. Tseng. We went to the publishing meeting of Dr. Tseng's new book in the beginning of October, and our representative was unexpectedly interviewed by a local cable station. Although he was too shy to answer in much detail, he still said, "We wish to understand more about him by having a special visit to Dr. Tseng through this Internet competition." This is a very short response, but it completely expresses our important considerations and expectations for Dr. Tseng and this competition.
In order to make this report more objective, we sought out many people who have some relationship to Dr. Tseng, including his classmates, doctors, writers, and member of the Legislative Yuan. Any suggestion or opinion might allow Dr. Tseng or us to have an attitude of identification and agreement.
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| Handing a seminar poster and taking a group photo with Dr. Tseng. | Finding out an unexpected data through Internet. |
We hope that using the power of Internet can lead more people to become acquainted with the father of Taiwans environmental movement, Dr. Kuei-Hi Tseng. Because of him, people can know of Taiwanese life and vigor. In the meantime, we hope to awaken more people to understand and pay attention to how closely environmental protection affects us. We often watch environment reports on television. From now on Dr. Tseng can been seen not only in traditional media programs but also on the Internet. What is he concerned about in Taiwan in recent years? What he has done or doing? Such this questions will be presented to everyone soon. Through a pluralistic of network, we believe we can arouse people to greater consciousness and to higher expectations for this country.
From the beginning, Secretary Zhou has helped us a lot. Because of her, we learned that Dr. Tseng has a New Book Publishing Party. Secretary Zhou systematically introduced us to Dr. Tseng, and let us have a chance to contact the doctor and talk with him about the project. After this, we e-mailed to Chiu-Hsing Yang (a member of the Legislative Yuan), and through the assistant of congress office, the service agency (Ms Lin) arranged time for our meeting. We met writer Chia-Hsiang Wang, poet and doctor Chiung-Ming Cheng, Sanitation Bureau President Yung-Hsing Chen, and had unexpected visits with our teachers Jui-Yung Su, Tieh-Min Chung and Cheng-Yu Cheng. They have all affirmed this project and agree with what Dr. Tseng has done.
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| Picture with our group member and Mr. Chia-hsiang Wang. | Picture with our group member and teacher Tieh-min Chung. |
Thanks to the Kaohsiung Green Association and the help of Ms Zhou, many anonymous strangers, and of course, to Mei-Long flat noodles mistress. Above all, this fully expresses the enthusiasm of the Taiwanese people.
We learned the usefulness of computer skills. However, the biggest reward for us was to visit Dr. Tseng and his friends. We thought that these famous public people must be very busy, and it would be impossible for them to have free time to let us ask questions. However, we are wrong! The people who we visited all enthusiastically assisted us. Further more, they took good care of us. This truth seemed beyond our expectations. In the past, public people seemed situated high above us all and it was hard to make contact with them. Maybe we think too much. From the very beginning, the people we visited did not in any way make it difficult to contact them. Fortunately, we did not suffer from any difficult problems. Instead, we received a good deal of encouragement. We were, and are, very happy.
