Volunteering Parent thoughts

       As a volunteering parent, if time allows, I would try my best to participate in the activities of observing Taiwanese endemic plants with these children whenever possible. In these activities, I feel comforted when I see the children become more concentrated; pay attention to learn; take notes; and show their curiosities.

       I think that my kid has really grown up.

       At the beginning, the school inquired if the parents would allow their children to join   “Taiwan Schools Cyber Fair”. I agreed immediately. I thought we should let the children have some unforgettable memories before they graduate. Therefore, when the school invited me to serve as the volunteering parent, I immediately accepted.

       Although the students had to use their free time after class to conduct the researches, observe Taiwanese endemic plants in the campus, sacrifice winter vacations to do the interviews, come to school for discussion, write up reports, I found these kids were having lots of fun and did not complain at all. Under the three advising teacher’s guidance, we have visited “Taiwanese Endemic Plants Conservation Center” of Nan-Tou County on a sunny day, “Endemic Plant Products Promotion Class” of Ur-Lin, “Happy Ecological Garden” on the Ba-Gua Mountain of Chang-Hua, and the “Tien-Wei Freeway Garden” on a rainy day to do the observations. Whether it was rain or sweat on the children’s faces, their faces looked extremely happy and enthusiastic. As a volunteering parent, I was very much touched just looking at them.

    Therefore, I strongly believe that throughout the processes of “Taiwan School Cyber Fair” competition, the children not only learned methods of acquiring knowledge but also learned how to work together as a team. No matter what the results of this competition are, the children are already winners because they have won the most valuable experiences that even money can’t buy.

About this research(Hung-Chang Chen)

    1.Motivations for conducting the research:

        Our campus is open and spacious, with plenty of fully-grown trees.  The campus, filled with greens, appears very lively.  The campus is rather big but there are not that many students.  The students help to sweep many fallen leaves on the floor, but there are too many leaves on the floor to be cleaned up.  It is a shame not to know the kinds of the trees we see everyday in our school.

        As a natural-science teacher myself, I used to feel guilty for not letting my students learn more about the plants here, and I didn’t know exactly where to begin.

When I mentioned my thoughts to the other two teachers, they also felt the same.  Also because one of our alumni, Mr. Pei Chuan, helped to plant seedlings of endemic genres in our campus, our chief administrator and teachers began to initiate this project to enter Cyber Fair’s environmental-issues category.  Also, our school has been selected as one of the computer-technology focus schools.  We have purchased and added equipments to enhance computer technology.  We hope that by joining the research project, we can let our students learn more and have better understandings of the plants.

2.        Objectives of the research:

(1).        To know endemic plants

(2).        To know the endemic plants in our campus

(3).        To realize the threats posed by foreign plants to local plants

(4).        To let students appreciate and cherish the trees and plants around us

3.        Methods of research:

(1).        Collect related information from the Internet

(2).        Read books related to plants

(3).        Visit relevant organizations: “Special Plants Center” in Ji-Ji, “Endemic Plant Products Promotion Class” of Ur-Lin (hosted by Mr. Chan Jay Wu), “Happy Ecological Garden” in Chang-Hua, and the “Tien-Wei Freeway Garden” 

(4).        Small-group discussions and conferences

(5).        Invite scholars and experts to give speeches in our school

4.        Results and discussions from the research:

(1).        From the facts that some of the seedlings have dried and died in our school, we learned that not all endemic plants are suitable to be planted in the plains.  We have to grow trees according to their nature and needs.

(2).        Being able to distinguish some endemic plants

(3).        Understand the impacts foreign plants have on local endemic plants

(4).        Understand different views the academic field and plant-industries have on these plants

(5).        Knowing how to distinguish trees by using collected data

5.        Suggestions and afterthoughts

(1).        This research is just a beginning.  We only know the very surface of endemic plants.  It will take a longer period of research and studies to have an even deeper understanding of the plants.

(2).        We should let the students know the plants first.  Then through the method of “Adopting a Tree”, we will let students adopt trees and take care of the trees automatically.

(3).        People in our community can also adopt the trees through PTA and Parents’ Association.

(4).        We didn’t know how open-ended this field of study is until we started getting involved.  The very little knowledge we had made us feel that we still hadn’t known enough.  We still needed to spend more time to gain more knowledge. 

The passions and dedications we had seen from Dr. Tseng, Mr. Wu of “Ur-Ling Products Promotion Class”, and Mr. Pei Chuan of the “Happy Ecological Garden” really touched us deeply.  Their dedications and contributions are tremendous, not for profit, but rather to fulfill their own dreams.  People turn great when they have dreams.  People who actually realize their dreams are the luckiest ones.  We hope that you and us can learn from them and look up to them as role models.  As teachers, we should do better researches and spend more efforts in hope of benefiting our students more.

Is this the end?  No, it’s just the beginning.〈Nien-yun Szu〉

When a seed falls down onto the ground, it silently waits for the right moments to come.

When fire burns, or snows fall, or the spring rain showers on it,

all the beautiful genes start to be awaken.

We, the Sun Forest Explore Team, are just like the awaken seeds that

will continue to grow and get stronger.

       Our team, with systematic planning,happily learn by doing.Originally we already love plants，so we really enjoy the learning experiences.Learning Taiwanese endemic/special plants and their families, genera, and natural orders really enhances our knowledge.  Getting to know and interviewing the scholars and experts in studying plants, planting plants, and selling plants are joyful encounters.  We enthusiastically want to influence people around us to embrace the trees in Taiwan.  After reading the research by the students, we think their products produced with great efforts deserve to be stored and shared.