Plan Overview

 •  The category we participated in the Cyberfair: Characteristic regional specialties

•  Description of our community:

Our homes and school are all located in the Taipei Wenshan District; currently the Baozhong tea produced in Wenshan has the best quality in Taiwan and is the most aromatic, so it is habitually called “Wenshan Baozhong tea.” The Wenshan area includes, Muzha, Sindian, Pinglin, Shrding, Shenkeng, Sijhu, Nangang tea areas, and has an area around 2300 hectares. The tea gardens are located mainly in the mountains, 400 meters above sea level, the environment is unique, the weather is warm, humid, and foggy, and the soil is fertile. So the Wenshan Baozhong tea produced there is very a high quality, and world renowned.

•  Topical research plan summery

Our team started with the famous “Wenshan Baozhong tea” of our hometown, exploring this specialty product that has impacted Chinese and foreign cultures for thousands of years. Learning more about Baozhong tea, we discovered in broader terms Qing tea, Xianpian, Dongding tea, Tieguanyin, and Wuyi tea can be all included in this category, it can also be called semi-fermented tea, so it is also known as Qing tea. The Baozhong tea produced by Wenshan District in Taipei County is the best, so it is called Wenshan Baozhong tea.

Our team explored the origins of Wenshan Baozhong tea, the distribution, the ecology, the brewing methods, and the categories; we found that the tea of our hometown is not just a beverage or culture; it is a philosophy of life and hometown flavor. We will use a humanistic perspective, and carefully taste the native flavor of Wenshan Baozhong tea, in order to arouse everyone’s hometown memories.

•  Our internet environment

For our research project, we used internet transmission for searching information and transmitting messages after class. We had two computer classrooms in our school with a total of 90 computers; they were open to students during lunch and break time, in addition there were also another 12 computers in the library. The internet environment was connected to the school computer center, and through a T1 wire it was connected to the academic web, so the internet environment was very stable and safe. Everyone had ADSL in their homes, so it was used to search and upload information, and on the network platform there was MSN messenger for instantly interacting online, the emails of the team, and the progress report area provided by the Cyberfair. The internet helped us to share and organize information, it also played an important role in communications with relevant people, and it also helped us to discuss, reflect and think about the progress of the research project.

•  The obstacles we overcame:

1. The pressures of time and schoolwork: While participating in this research topic, we needed to use the time after class to search on the internet, research for more information in the library, and organizing, sharing, discussing, and uploading information. We would have irregular group meetings allocating the group work, contacting the subjects for interviews, going on the interviews, and organizing and modifying the interview photos and information. Until the time we were finally producing the website, it was a constant race with time; we also still had to manage our schoolwork and the various tests in school. We had to use the weekends and holidays working on the report, sometimes we needed to take time off school in order to meet with the interview subjects, after returning home we also needed to finish our homework. Fortunately we all worked together as a group, and through our collective wisdom we overcame the problems that arose from the topical website production and school work.

2. The passing down of experience and mutual understanding: Besides Feng Yuan and Jing-Wen, all other team members were participating in the Cyberfair for the first time, and we all came from different classes. Although we were all good friends, we still sometimes lacked mutual understanding. Fortunately both the new classmates had humble learning attitudes and high comprehensive abilities, and the two experienced classmates were patient and accepting, so everyone could quickly become involved in the project, everyone was responsible for their own work and finishing whatever was requested to be done.

3.Lack of professional knowledge: The tea industry has slowly declined, and the number of people drinking tea has decreased, we explored relevant books, but it seems when you need more knowledge you can never find enough books at the time, we never thought that being in middle school, we had a lot less knowledge then expected. Although it is easy to search for information on the internet, we still lack in detailed and professional knowledge, so besides asking the teachers in school, we also went to the community Wenshan Library, finally we even went to the tea leaf expert Mr. Lin who was a Section Chief in the Nangang District Farmer’s Association, and also to the Council of Agriculture to solve many of our questions. 

4. Contacts and actual interviews: In order to understand the current development and obstacles of the tea industry, we actively contacted the units we wanted to interview. But many units were very busy and were unable to fulfill our requests immediately. We would always first use an e-mail to introduce our team and express our request to visit; we would then telephone them to communicate the details of the visit. The volunteer mother would also help us actively contact them, allowing us to finally visit one location after another.

5. Transportation: The range of our research project included Pinglin, Nangang, and Beitou, these locations cannot be reached through bus or MRT. So every time we needed to do research surveys or interviews, we always needed our parents to drive, such as Feng-Yuan’s mother, and Ching-Dan, Ching-Yi’s mother. When interviewing at Wang’s Tea, the volunteer mothers concentrated on listening just as hard as us.

6. Website production: Besides discussions deciding the basic structure and menu of the entire themed website, and making sure the links between the pages were orderly; in order to organize the appearance of the entire website, we needed to also discuss and test the colors of each word, the design of the icons, and the background. We encountered many problems during this process, but luckily we had guidance and modifications from our teacher and volunteer mothers, allowing us to experience the joy in completing our website.

Through participating in this topical website production, we experienced teamwork and cooperation. This research topic was not as simple as we thought, we not only had to put in our full effort; we also had to take out time to perform interviews, organize information, perform surveys, and write the learning sheets. Although we were ten times more tired then normal, seeing the final results and all the returns, we forgot our exhaustion.

For anything, if you do not experience it in-person, you cannot fully understand the joys and sorrows, we felt this especially during Chinese New Year when the research project was reaching the end and our computer crashed. Fortunately the broadband computer finally helped us solve our problem; I think gratitude alone was insufficient in expressing our emotions at the time. We hope we can share this little achievement with our school, our teachers, and the volunteer mothers that have supported us through this entire process.

Project elements

•  How can participating in the topical research plan for the “ Taiwan Cyberfair” combine with the nine-year integrated curriculum?

This research activity provides the school the opportunity to verify if the education curriculum or classes have omissions or deficiencies; it demonstrates the potential of middle school students, as well as the mutual understanding and group cooperation between classmates (skills that cannot be learned in the classroom). This activity can be used as a case study for other students to reference, review, and evaluate; it can deepen our knowledge about local culture and concern for the humanities. It also implements the long term promotion of local culture and humanities education by the school, increasing the humanities cultivation of the students. Our research activities are also a topic in the social science curriculum; the learning sheet, survey production and execution, allowed us to understand the essence of this research. So we chose a very characteristic local specialty as our main topic this time, allowing us to learn more about the land we grew up in and to value local awareness, coinciding with the goals of local education by the nine-year integrated curriculum. We will develop the results for the education of all the students in school.

•  What information technology was used to finish the Cyberfair topical research?

•  What kind of methods did we use through internet, individuals, or team encounters to play the role of “ambassador?”

In the research process we used emails and phones to contact all our interview subjects in order to express our concern and interest in the research topic, and our hopes for contributing to our home town. Through visiting the Construction Bureau, the Pinglin Tea Museum , the Muzha Tea Exhibition Center , the Nangang Farmer’s Association, Wang’s Tea, and the Wenshan Library, we explored the past, the present, and the future of the tea industry in our home town. We hope that through the production of the research topic website, everyone can have a better understanding toward our hometown tea and to have hope toward the future. I think it is a wonderful thing to be able to start from affirming our own home town, and then projecting that affirmation into love for the land we grew up in.

•  What impacts and influences have our topical research project had on us?

In the research activities this time, it allowed each team member to understand the development of tea in our hometown; it was not just a topic we learned in class, but a passing down of humanity history. The decline of tea culture is because of the rising fast-food culture and allowing the free entrance of imported agricultural products, by allowing the types and amount of imported tea to increase yearly, it has resulted in severe losses for the tea farmers; under these conditions the resolve of Wang’s Tea’s chairman is even more touching. The restructuring of farm communities, has brought another wave of economic effects, we hope that through the strength of a small screw we can find a new beginning for tea culture. This research activity also helped us comprehend the organization, allocation, and management concepts in a team, including time management, information management, and human resources management, etc.

•  Respecting intellectual property and citations explanations

In the research activity process, we noticed the problem of intellectual property rights with the information we cited. So in the interview process, we would first get the approval of the subject; whether or not we could post the interview photos and content on the website. When we continuously asked Chairman Wang of Wang’s Tea for approval to cite or use the information he gave us, he acknowledged our respect for intellectual property.

•  Discovery, a lesson, and surprises

  In the research activity this time, we found that there are many beautiful things that are easily ignored or misunderstood in daily life waiting for us to discover and experience. The beautiful tea gardens of our home town and the graceful tea tasting culture were totally overlooked by us in the past.

Only when we were interviewing the Construction Bureau did we understand the vast and complicated work of the Construction Bureau, including circuses, the Farmer’s Association, animal excrements, even cadmium rice… it was really unbelievable, and of course they also had to be “disturbed” by our team. 

We often needed to remind ourselves to concentrate and focus, and have a spirit of team work in order to finish the task together. At Wang’s Tea, Chairman Wang reprimanded us without reserve, that he felt we were not well-prepared enough, causing us to be more careful with every interview after. We found that the knowledge outside of our school books is immeasurable, waiting for us to explore and understand; and the potential of each person cannot be predicted or limited.

Contributions