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ST. STEPHEN’S COLLEGE CYBERFAIR PROJECT |
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Project Narrative Form
Project Introduction
Title: Restoration, Beautification and Upkeep of Princes Town’s Historical Train Tunnel
Category: Historical Landmarks
School: St. Stephen’s College
Address: Craignish Road, Princes Town
Other Information: There were four teachers and fifteen students who worked together in this project. The names of the teachers are Mr. Frank Arjoon, Mrs Daena Marcano-Halls, Mr. Duane Khan and Miss Shireen Ramdhanie. The age range of the students was 14-16 years old. One student is from Form 3 level and the remaining students are from Form 4 level. This is the first time St. Stephen’s College has participated in the National Schools’ CyberFair Competition.
E-mail Contact: st_stephenscollege@yahoo.com
Our School’s website: http://ststephenscollege.edu.tt
Project Overview
1. Description of "Our Community" Princes Town is located in the south of the island of Trinidad, east of the city of San Fernando. Its landscape is one of gently undulating land that is cultivated mainly by sugar cane. It serves as a central point for many surrounding villages.
Though its population is relatively small, Princes Town is rich in history and culture. It was originally called Mission Town by Capuchin Monks who established it. Later its name was changed to Princes Town after a historic visit by Prince Albert and Prince George in the year 1880.
A lot of this history is almost lost because there is no program in place to care for and highlight our history and historical monuments. Citizens of Princes Town, especially the young ones, are largely unaware of the vital role the railways had in the development of Princes Town. Nor are they aware that the train tunnel within their borders is only one of the two on the entire island.
Through this project we hope to educate people of Princes Town and the national community of the rich history, Princes Town possesses. We hope that it inspires others to cherish and conserve our historic monument and treasures in a sustainable manner as well as in one where it can be enjoyed by all.
After this project is completed, no historic tour of Trinidad will be complete without a visit to Princes Town.
2. Summary of Our Project Our CyberFair Web Project is all about empowering and uniting our local community to meet a goal, which is, to restore, beautify and upkeep Princes Town’s Historical Train Tunnel. This train tunnel has been in existence for over 100 years. Most people in Princes Town do not even know about it. We hope to make this train tunnel a historical landmark in Princes Town through the help and support of Princes Town’s community. We hope that through this project we will strengthen the bonds between the members of the community, so that in the same way they have come together to preserve a important part of Trinidad and Tobago’s history, they will continue to stay together and work together to build a safer and better Trinidad and Tobago.
3. CyberFair Theme This year’s CyberFair Theme is “Empower and Unite”. Our CyberFair project is centered around restoring this historical train tunnel into a historical landmark for Princes Town. We have gotten the community involve to help us in this venture. We have sent out flyers to the community members to assist us in any way they can. We have targeted business places and sent formal letters to them asking for financial and volunteer assistance.
We have also targeted organizations such as Princes Town Regional Corporation which helped a lot in the clearing and cleaning of the site area. Another organization is SWMCOL who have shown a great interest in our project.
Through these efforts we have united the community to come together as one to help in this venture. Through this unison, they have been empowered, because they know they are working towards something that is much greater than themselves, but as a community they are able to stand strong and do what ever it takes to replenish an important part of Trinidad and Tobago’s history.
We know that through this project we will attract outside community members who will want to learn and share in this rich history , so as a result we will be making new bonds and relationships and so help build a stronger Trinidad and Tobago.
4. Our Computer and Internet Access A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home: 75% B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the school: 1 C. Connection speed used in our school school: 50 Kb/s D. Number of years our school has been connected to the Internet: 3
5. Problems We Had To Overcome First of all, it was difficult to find time to meet with the teachers and students on a regular basis, that is find the time to fit everyone’s schedule/timetable. Teachers were involved in other after school activities eg. giving extra lessons, coaching cricket team. We the students, as well had extra lessons to attend after school. Also the last few weeks before submission of this project was a crucial time for teachers in setting end of term exams and we had to study for these exams. All of this caused us to have limited time to work on the project.
Another problem was getting the equipment on a regular basis from Princes Town Regional Corporation to clear and clean up our landmark. This is because they had a work schedule to be kept. When they had extra time on their hands, then they were able to assist us. This also kept back progress in our project.
Even though we have not completed our project it will be an ongoing one. However, we still tried and overcome some of these problems and therefore made a head start in the project and was able to at least give a representation of what we have accomplished so far in the project for the competition.
6. Our Project Sound Bite This project allows the school to contribute something valuable to the community. It presented students and the school in a positive light and inspired pride in the community, building a sense of belonging to something larger than ourselves, rooted firmly in history.
7. How did your activities and research for this International Schools CyberFair Project support required coursework and curriculum standards? Our CyberFair Project has helped us to learn a lot of things and also acquire a lot of skills. We divided our project into sections and students into groups. Each group was given a section of the project to work on. Since the students that were selected were doing different combinations of subjects, the distribution of each section to each group of students was based on their strengths for that particular section of the project. For example History students were asked to work on the historical aspect of the train tunnel and Information Technology students worked on the design and construction of the website. There were interaction between the groups where they could learn from one another. In this way we got the best results.
We demonstrated proper planning, team work and co-operation. Through interaction with members of the community and business organizations we improved in our communication skills. By acting as “ambassadors” we also improved on our leadership skills. We learnt new skills on how to build websites by using Microsoft Publisher, using a scanner and digital camera and editing pictures using Paint.
Through this project, it has helped us with our daily life at school as well. We can better cope with group projects and interact and co-operate better with other students on a team level basis. The failures we encountered in this project was a learning experience for future projects.
From this project, we discovered that the Educational System does not stress on the local community. Emphasis is in learning about national history, but not the history of local areas. This is a major flaw in the effort to build community and national pride.
Project Elements
1) What information tools & technologies did you use to complete your CyberFair project?
The following tools and technologies were used in our Cyber Fair Project. We used personal computers at home and in school. The school Computer Lab comprises of approximately 20 functioning computers: Dell Intel Pentium 4 CPU 1.8 GHz and HP AMP Sempron Processor 1.6 GHz.
The construction of the Computer Lab was as a result of a Young Leaders Project, St. Stephen’s College participated in. This was in the early 1990’s. The computer lab was then built by the College and computers donated.
The school’s digital camera, scanner, internet, libraries, books, newspaper and oral interviews were used. All of theses tools were valuable. The internet, books and libraries helped in research. The digital camera and scanner helped in documenting and presenting a clearer depiction of what our project is all about and what we are trying to accomplish through the project.
Microsoft Publisher was used to create the website and Microsoft Internet Explorer was used to view the webpages. Microsoft Word was used to type and edit some information before it was transferred to MS Publisher. MS Word was also used to type letters to businesses in the community for assistance in our project and also in creating flyers that were distributed to the community members to get them involved in the project. Paint was used to edit pictures.
2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project ?
In our CyberFair Project we acted as “ambassadors” by telling our fellow schoolmates and people in our community about our project. The restoration of the historical train station in Princes Town was thought to be a great project by many people we interacted with. Lots of these people had no idea that Princes Town had a train tunnel, or even a historical site. Many of the people we met commended us for actually doing something to uplift their unknown community of Princes Town. Flyers were given out, together with letters and phone calls informing the community and business places of our quest. The purpose is to “Empower and Unite” through our project, so what better way to do this than by getting everyone in the community to get involved by giving some sort of contribution, be it financially or just volunteer assistance. However, as they say, “Rome was not built in a day”. So naturally all of this took a lot of time.
3) What has been the impact of your project on your community? It is easy to say how this project has impacted the Princes Town community. When people outside of our community ask us where we live they usually do it twice because they have never heard of it. Its not that they are young and do not visit other places in Trinidad and Tobago. Its because there is not much to say about Princes Town. Now that a historical landsite is being restored, I need not tell, where I live twice because there is something unique about our community.
Many people now admire us for our efforts because , now the days of the old, can be remembered by the elders of our community. The train tunnel was a main means of travel for many people who can still remember the rides they took.
When people both local and foreign look through our website they would be surprised that such an unknown community has so much history hidden away. The information we found will leave people wondering when they read it, what other historical aspects Princes Town and Trinidad and Tobago on the whole has to offer. It will show people that Princes Town is not just a community but a place worth hearing about.
During this entire project a lot of new working relationships were made, many new friends found and lots of new things learnt. This was truly an enjoyable and educational experience for us.
4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers? We would like to thank Mr. Hardeo Seuraj, Vice Principal of our school for telling us about this historical site and encouraging us to take it up as our Cyber Fair Project. Thanks go to Ms. Marilyn Temull , an English Teacher for helping in the proof reading of all documents pertaining to our CyberFair Project eg. letters to business places and flyers to the community for volunteer assistance. Also thanks to the office staff: Mrs. Mala Jaisarie, Mrs. Sarah Owen-Jones and Mrs. Ingrid Boodhan who stood by to take calls from the community members who wished to volunteer any assistance.
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