1. Description of Our Community
Cannelton is a small and very historical town located on the banks of the Ohio River in southern Indiana. It has a rich heritage which dates back to 1837 with the founding of the American Cannel Coal Company. It now has about 2000 residents, many of whom have lived here all of their lives. Cannelton has seen many hardships and many triumphs throughout the years yet it is still going strong. Cannelton residents want to keep our town alive and prosperous, as well as preserve its heritage.
2. Summary of Our Project
Our project, Wondrous Wyandotte Caves, was created in order to inform people of the importance of not just Wyandotte Caves, but all caves, and their inhabitants,escpecially bats. We tell all about Wyandotte Caves, including its wonders like its formations and of course the bats! We want the world to know that caves and bats are important for our world, We believe we all have the power to take care of the caves so that they may continue to forever exist as a safe home for wildlife and a beautiful sight to see for visitors for generations to come.
3. Our Computer and Internet Access
A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:21-50%
B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:none
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):
At our school we have a T1 line to the Internet. In our classroom we have five computers connected to the Internet. We have had internet access at our school for eight years now. About 50% of our students have Internet access at home.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
We had very few problems with this project. The only one to mention would be finding the time to complete it at school. We worked it out by coming in during recesses to the media room and also staying after school. Also, a lot of our research was done on our own by visiting our local library. We were able to overcome not being able to interview some of our experts in person by doing e-mail interviews. This worked out well!
5. Our Project Sound Bite
We have participated in Cyberfair now for several years, gaining from it a sense of purpose and empowerment that no other project has offered to us. We feel that our work on this year's project, 'Wondrous Wyandotte Caves' is important and will have a positive impact for the caves because it will help to inform people not only of why the caves are important but also what we all can do to preserve them. Our great thanks goes to International Schools Cyberfair for giving the opportunity to do this!
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
Working on this project allowed our students to learn about cave ecosystems and how important they are to the Earth as a whole. This meets several educational standards in science. Creating the website itself met our language arts standards and also gave the students skills in working with word processing, webpage building, researching on the Internet, graphing, photograph editing, and allowed them to use their creative skills in design. They learned to work collaboratively in a team setting. These lifelong skills will help them in future endeavors. This project has given the students a sense of purpose and accomplishment because they know when people visit their website and learn about Wyandotte Caves they will want to visit them and will want to help take care of them. The students know this is helping to preserve a beautiful part of nature in Indiana. Soon the students will be presenting this project to their school board as well as to other students across the state at the Indiana State Media Festival. This will give them a chance to strengthen their speaking skills as well as give them the chance to promote their project even more.
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