July 16th

Today we went to the trails to do our project. Firstly we found an ideal place which was flat at both sides of the trail and the concrete road. Then we put four chopsticks with strings around them on the soil so that it covered 1 meter square. Then we separated to several parts and we counted the individuals of different plant species within this 1 meter square. And we collected each kind of plants we discovered. Then we collected the soil sample and changed to another site. It turned out that different places had different kinds of plants and the soils were often different and that was what we were interested in.

In the afternoon, after we finished collecting samples of 4 sites and also controlled group, we asked Professor Chong to help us figure out all the names of the plants we found. And he was so helpful that finally we finished all the plant names.

At night, we moved to the wood villa and would stay there for two days.

July 15th

Today we had a lecture about soil biodiversity given by Professor Lin in the morning and then Tom gave us a lecture about "Biodiversity: what, who and where" on the grass outdoor. And that was really creative and relaxing. Tom talked a lot about biodiversity from the nomenclature to the numbers of species and to the relationship between human and environment.

In the afternoon we all presented our project proposals and the teacher gave us some advice and then my team members and I went to explore our ideal sites for taking samples and we also went to the sky walk. At night, we discussed about what we would do tomorrow and I think everything is ready. Just do it tomorrow!

July 14th

Today we had a lecture about the tea history and culture in Taiwan in the morning. The professor told us a lot about stories of tea and we also tasted a lot of tea.

In the afternoon we listened to the introduction to birds in Taiwan by Professor Yuan. She introduced a lot about the endemic species of birds in Taiwan. And then we went outside to observe different kinds of birds and plants. After that our team members and I hiked to the University pond and we saw various kinds of trails along the road. And we decided to do something about the trails in our project.

At night, we discussed a lot about it and finally we had our project proposal done.

July 13th

Today we visited the Phoenix Tea Plantation first in the morning. We walked a long way up to look at the tea farm and saw some kinds of plants there. Then we watched the arts of brewing tea and we also brewed the tea by ourselves in turns. And that was a lot of fun. We drank so much tea, like Dongding Oolong and Oriental Beauty.

After lunch we headed to the Bamboo products shop which has a lot of bamboo art crafts and secret boxes that are hard to open. We tried to figure out how to open them as many as possible. That shop had a lot of interesting things and Tom bought a bamboo box which costed 4000 NTD.

Then we went to the Sitou Experimental Forest and set down there.

July 12th

Today we left Shueili to the Endemic Specimen Research Institute. We had a lecture about specimens first and then we visited the specimen storage room. The specimens there were mostly for education and they were all kept very carefully and strictly. Then we visited the Wildlife First-aid Center. And we learnt how the staffs rescued the injured animals and helped them get better.

After the lunch, we had a lecture given by Professor Zheng about the diversity of bats in Taiwan. In the end of the lecture, the professor showed a live Taiwan Long-eared bat to us and it was tiny and very cute. Then we had a guide tour of the Conservation Education Center and we saw a special exhibition of Taiwan moths and we learnt a lot about Taiwan's biodiversity as well.

After staying at the ESRI for nearly a day, we went to the Ji-ji County to see a temple left from the severe earthquake ten years ago. And then we headed to the Phoenix Tea Gardon.

July 11th

Today we went to the Shueili Wood Utilization Center in the morning and we saw different kinds of furniture made of wood. Many of them are made of precious wood in Taiwan, such as Cypress, Taiwania Hayata and so on. And we also saw much dedicated wood furniture, like bed, chairs, tables, etc. Then we headed to the Practice Factory to see how the workers cut woods into slices. And the machine could do the work very correctly. Then the prizes for Angela and Emily came out! Emily got a baseball bat and Angela got a rolling stick and they were both made by the master worker at once.

After that we had our Bench DIY which seemed very easy at first. We needed to make the wood parts smooth with the sand paper and then put them together with glue. Then we used the Ray to carve characters on the surface, which looked very beautiful. After that we used a machine to put the paint on it twice so that it would be smooth. At last, we pasted the tiles on the bench with different colors we chose. Finally, all of us made gorgeous benches.

At night, we watched a Discovery Video about functions of woods and a new technique to produce more woods. We learnt that wood is a magic kind of material that its tubulous cell structure makes it possible to produce stout  architectures. And recent research found out that woods could be a perfect energy instead of corns or other bioenergy. Because it is much cheaper and we would not use the foods we need to produce energy. And there is a poplar forest in America and the tree, which is a product of genetic engineering, could grow very fast and the production is always enougu for cutting. That is really amazing and would be widely used in the future I believe.

July 10th

Today we left Meifeng Farm where we lived for 3 days. And we went to Chunyang to pick up tomatoes. I picked up a lot and it was fun. Then we headed to the Sunmoon Lake. We had a delicious lunch in an aboriginal restaurant. And the foods there were spicy and salty and also very gorgeous. After lunch, we had a guide tour. The guide told us a lot about history of Chiang Chaichieh. Although I went there once before, it attracted me that I learnt more about the famous spot and the aboriginal people there. Then we walked around the island and got on the bus to go to Shuili.

At night, we were taught to play the Luban Lock which seemed difficult to us at first. I played that before in a science museum but I just forgot how to play it. Then we had a competition. The person who completed first would win. Everyone seemed so nervous and finally Angela and Emily won and they will get a big prize tomorrow. What will it be?