For over 10 years, the
Chi Sing Eco-Conservation Foundation has been committed to conducting environmental
research, raising educational awareness, and building new ecological communities
in Taiwan. Since its establishment in 1998, the group has put all its efforts into
maintaining the natural beauty of Taiwan’s ecology and improving the living
environment for all citizens. In 2005, Chi Sing established a biodiversity training
program for young eco-watchers and nature tour guides. This program helps lay a
strong foundation of ecological knowledge in the young generation, while bestowing
on them a rich sense of the wonders of our natural environment.
Traditionally, ecological observation classes revolve around teachers giving presentations
in the classroom while students either line up at the desk or struggle to peer over
the heads of their classmates, all just to get a simply adequate chance to
observe the subject at hand. This approach is often a waste of valuable teaching
time and can severely limit a child’s attention span and enthusiasm for learning.
To find a new and more successful strategy, Chi Sing set up the Nature Observation
Youth Workshop, taught by Ching-Feng Lin, a well-known Taiwanese nature educator
and blogger. Through this course, participating students can get the most out of
ecological observations and learn more about our friends in nature. Using the AVerVision CP155 visualizer
(document camera) and its
16X total zoom function, Lin is able to introduce his young students to the appearance
and behavior of bats by capturing images of their wings, front and hind limbs, transparent
joints, and even the small tail, all in perfect detail. The class provides urban
students with a unique opportunity to get up close and personal with our flying,
cave-dwelling friends.
The AVerVision CP155 visualizer's
(document camera's) use in
the ecological observation course enhances the whole ecological learning experience
for students by making powerful features and capabilities easy to setup, simple
to use, and very convenient for Lin to incorporate into class activities. This ingenious
device is able not only to display the bat’s most intricate and minute physical
structures clearly, but also to overcome the difficulties in Lin's class of capturing
a quality image of the bat's body, which is in constant movement. The images are
captured successfully by the visualizer's
(document camera's) freeze
frame function. Everything, including measuring the wingspan, observing hind toes
while hanging asleep, studying how the transparency of joints changes as the bat
ages, viewing the miniature tail, and comparing the unique characteristics of each
species, can be performed using the
visualizer’s (document
camera's) auto focus and image capture features. With the ability to
freeze live images and present students fascinating footage and stills in vibrant
quality, the teacher can lead young students directly into the amazing world of
bats and create an exciting and interactive learning environment.
Of course, the biggest problem Lin faces is when the bats cannot keep still. They
either don’t stop fidgeting or else they fly around the room. But with the
AVerVision CP155
visualizer (document camera),
these worries are virtually eliminated! The
AVerVision CP155 sports a 3.2-megapixel high resolution lens and 24 frames-per-second
smooth video streaming, as well as a user-friendly interface and one-touch auto
focus. Even if the bat in front of the camera is constantly flapping its wings or
making random, jerky movements, the
CP155 can easily present the highest video quality possible. During the
observation session, even the slightest squirm of the bat’s body will make
the eyes of the children light up in excitement. They begin to raise their hands
and eagerly ask questions in their quest to better understand how bats live. With
the AVerVision CP155,
city-dwelling children can, for the first time, easily interact with Mother Nature
and experience all the joy and wonder that our earth has to offer.
Teachers can also utilize the AVerVision
CP155’s flexible gooseneck design to turn the camera around and film
the reactions of students. Seeing their own faces and those of their classmates
as they become the main characters on the 'big screen' is always a surprising and
entertaining experience for students and is sure to perk up the learning atmosphere
for the remaining few minutes of the lesson. Thanks to the
AVerVision CP155, students are no longer forced to attend boring and monotonous
traditional lectures, where the teacher is a solo-act. Now, each student can become
an active participant in their own lessons, thereby increasing their own interest
in, and passion for, learning about our natural world. Teachers benefit too, as
students are more motivated, classes become more exciting places of wonder and discovery,
and course materials/subjects come to life! All of these benefits come from using
the AVerVision CP155 visualizer
(document camera), which
brings our natural world right into the classroom in unique, creative and stimulating
ways!