Lu Mu-ching and Shih Yi-ping, two graduates of the program of Secondary Teacher Education of TKU, now teachers of Taipei Municipal Nanhu High School, guided five students constructing the website “Gene Era─ A GMF Secret Garden” to join the “Doors to Diplomacy International Competition,” sponsored by the U. S. Department of State, and won the Honorable Mention Awards.

The team, including two teachers and five students, first participated in the competition, “Taiwan Doors to Diplomacy,” held by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China, and Taiwan Information Technology Education Development Association. Later, they translated the content of their website into English and took part in the international competition. This year, 86 works from 38 countries joined the contest. Since all the years the winners are mostly the American teams, and this is the first time Taiwan students getting a prize, the two teachers really made a great contribution.

They selected one of eight sub-categories─Business, Trade, and Economics─as their Doors to Diplomacy research project. In the website they introduce the motivation and the process of making genetically modified food (GMF), analyze the common GMF of different countries and their influence, and discuss the controversies derived from GMF.

Lu Mu-ching, who graduated from Dept. of Computer Science and Information Egnineering, indicates that the process and experience of the competition would help students a lot when they enter higher education. She stresses that the most difficult part of the research project lies in the selection of topic, and the cooperation among students. Lu adds that the project not only involves five students and two teachers, she and Shih Yi-ping, alumnus from Graduate Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, but also their school nurses and other fellow students. Since they chose gene engineering as their main topic, the school nurses helped them gather updated biographical information. Lastly, they asked the students of English honor class to translat the content of the website into English. Therefore, the whole project could be called a crystal of the mass.

Lu especially thanks to Ju Huey-fang, a teacher who once taught her in the program of Secondary Teacher Education. She says that at the beginning of the program, she felt a lot of pressures because of Chu’s many high standard demands, but in the end she found that it stimulated her potential. Talking about the phenomenon that the supply of teachers exceeds the demand, Lu indicates that the students of the educational programs do not have to worry. She believes that as long as they have great ability, more will to participate in administrative affairs of a school, and more passion to lead the school clubs or teams, they can definitely become good teachers that every school wants to hire. (~ Amanda Yen )