Hi, my name is Jenna I am in fifth grade at Webster Elementary School. I am 10 years old. My family includes my mom, dad, and my brother. I also have a lot of relatives. I have lots of best friends. I have also made a lot of friends by helping creating our website for Thinkquest. Here is what I love to do more than making friends, although you will see they go hand in hand: play sports. I divide my sports by season since I live in New Hampshire! In the winter I play basketball for my school team. I get to meet a lot of new kids playing basketball, too. Sometimes I ski at a mountain near my house and I ice skate. In the summer, I like to swim and play tennis. I belong to a local club with a swimming pool, tennis courts, a field to play in, and a mini basket ball court. Then I have the activities I do year round, which revolve around dance. At dance class, I take jazz class and tap
class. I enjoy both equally. I especially like the sound the tap shoes make on the wooden floor.
Besides sports, I also love music and instruments. I am in the fifth grade band at my school. I play the saxophone. Also, I play piano. I take private lessons for the piano. I'm also in love with music. My favorite genres of music are: rap, pop, hip hop, rock, and a little bit of country. Plus music and sports I am a Junior Girl Scout. I have been in Girl Scouts since I was in first grade. I love Girl Scouts because you get to learn, spend time with your friends, help other people, and do community service. My favorite thing about Girl Scouts is something we do yearly. We go to a local nursing home at Christmas time, and sing Christmas Carols. It's really nice to see the elders' faces light up. I have many goals for the future. I want to go to a great college and have a successful, well- paid job so I can take care of my family. A couple of colleges I have had in mind are: Dartmouth college in New Hampshire, BC ( Boston College) or UNH (University of New Hampshire). I am fascinated by animals, especially sea life. This is why I have an idea of what I want to be when I grow up. I really want to be a marine biologist, and I want to work at the Atlantis, Paradise Island in the Bahamas. I went to the Bahamas this past vacation and it was so beautiful! I want to work there because it is the biggest sea life aquarium in the USA. I also love animals and nature because I like watching the Planet Earth series. In case you are unfamiliar with this series here is how it was filmed, National Geographic went around the whole world filming things that no one has ever seen before. The first time I watched it, I cried because there were animals that were getting chased by bigger animals and eventually getting caught. Through watching this chase scene, I realized that I did not want the bigger animals to starve even if it meant the little animals would get eaten. It really hit home that there is the circle of life and all creatures must be cared for, including our honey bees! By watching the Planet Earth series I also realized how much I appreciate God for creating this beautiful planet. This is why we must take care of the Earth and all her creatures who inhabit the space with us.When Miss Beakey and Mrs, asked me to be on their Thinkquest team, of course I said yes! But, what I did not know was that it was a big commitment. It was a fun commitment, though! Sometimes, I got tired of working at home on Thinkquest because it took a lot of time and a lot of hard work! I worked on the writing and research and some of the graphics for the website. Plus I was on the forum we created a lot, checking in, double checking my writing that is why the forum was very helpful. It was another way besides our meetings we could communicate. ThinkQuest taught me a lot about my own abilities as a writer. It was a great experience working with the students from other countries too! I am proud of our work, I am proud of our team. We had some difficulties but we managed to work everything out and make an awesome site!

Hi! I am Gulyetar! I was born in Russia and have been in the United States about two years. attended a Magnet Program at Webster Elementary for English Language Learners. I am the reason there is a ThinkQuest Team at Webster this year! Last year my classmates participated in a ThinkQuest Competition and I really, really, really wanted to be a part of a ThinkQuest team. So, I begged my teachers to help me put to together a team. It actually was not that hard because two of my other classmates were interested and then Jen and Jenna joined the team. The reason I wanted to be on a team was because I wanted to learn how to use Dreamweaver and Flash. Plus I like drawing and research, I knew it would improve my English writing too! Working on the team has been a great experience for me, I love seeing how a project comes together and how a team working together can complete a task. After we decided which part of the website we would be responsible for, we started to work! I did most of the drawings because that is one of my strong points. I also researched information from books since I do not have a computer at home, The team helped me write my information when I was stuck finding a word. Besides this I was very interested in the bees, we use a lot of honey in Russia. It was a topic I could relate too! After learning about the plight of the bees I was very sad. Anywhere they go they are subject to toxins or pollutants. This is something they have no power over, they do not know it is bad for them and the hive. It kind of reminds me of humans. Sometimes we have no idea the food we eat, the air we breathe and the water we drink is actually hurting us. Now we know it also harms the tiniest of creatures. I hope our website helps people understand how to take care of the environment they live in, that every small thing, like insecticides and pesticides, can have a big impact on the environment or on one tiny hive. As for me personally, my goal is become a doctor. I want to help sick people. I also love drawing and design, cooking, the color green, singing and the Red Sox baseball team. If I had to pick two heroes it would be my Mom and my Dad. They have been through so much to keep us safe, healthy and happy. Plus they encourage me to follow my dreams!

Hi, my name is Jorge! I am from Mexico and I am living in New Hampshire now. I am ten years old. I speak Spanish and English, sometimes both at the same time! I am good at translating from English to Spanish and Spanish to English. I like to ride my bike after school with my friends and I love to listen to music. My favorite kind of music is rap music, in English and Spanish. I also like Mexican songs too! I have a lot of friends in my class, even though they are from different countries. Every day at recess, we play basketball. It's not my favorite sport, but I like to play it anyway. My absolute favorite sport is wrestling, even though I cannot wrestle at all! I like to watch wrestling every weekend. My favorite wrestler is Rey Misterio. The best part of ThinkQuest is that I got to meet new people. I also really liked meeting the beekeeper from New Hampshire, Wendy. We actually met her
last summer on a field trip. It was so cool to see her honeybees! Then, this fall, she came to visit our class and teach us about honeybees. My jobs for ThinkQuest were creating graphics in Flash and writing in Dreamweaver. I did many of the graphics of crops that honeybees pollinate. I used an image search to help me draw the graphics really well. I enjoy drawing, it is one of my favorite past times and it comes easier to me than writing. The hardest part of ThinkQuest was writing because sometimes it's hard or me to write in English. Working on ThinkQuest taught me a lot about the
research and writing part of the website. This is because the team had an outline. I discovered it was much easier for me to write with an outline. I had a clear idea of my part of the topic. So when I did my research I knew the key points to look for, and the key points to put into my writing. My hope for my future is that I will be able to finish my education, that includes college. No one in my family has ever gone to college. This will mean I will get a good job and help my family. I do really want to help my Dad and Mom, they support everything I do and are always encouraging me to learn more. This is why I was happy I was on a ThinkQuest team, it was fun, I learned many things about the computer and it is good for my future Now that we are finished, I feel really nervous! I think the website looks just like we imagined it would look in the beginning of the project.

Hi, my name Thu. I am in fourth grade at Webster Elementary School. I attend the Magnet Program for English Language Learners. I am originally from Vietnam and have been in the United States for about two years. Changing countries was very difficult for me as I am soft spoken person. For me that was probably the hardest part of being on team. But this was also the best part of being on the team too. I learned to find my own voice. My brother was on a ThinkQuest team last year, I saw how much he learned and how much fun he had helping to bring the project together. That is why I really wanted to be on the team. I like research and writing. Someday I want to be a doctor. I knew pushing myself to learn new things would be a good experience and I would learn new skills that would help me in my future studies. It was also a good diversion for me since my best friend Zayrah moved back to Pakistan and I really missed her company. Zayrah was also on a ThinkQuest Team last year and she was the one who encouraged me to join this year. This gave me the confidence that I could be a productive member of the team. I learned so much, flash, Dreamweaver and how to fine tune my researching skills. I am very thankful for this opportunity. When I am not doing ThinkQuest, I play violin. I love music, it is so soothing. I also like to read in my spare time.

Hi, my name is Faizan. I am ten years old, a student in the Webster Elementary Magnet Program for
English Language Learners. I have been in the United States for about one year and a half. I am originally from Pakistan. I can speak Urdu, understand Punjabi and I am learning to read and write Arabic as well as English. As you can tell I am very serious about my studies. My goal for the future is to become an entrepreneur, this of course means going to college. Even though my friends think I am crazy I have applied to a summer program to enhance my learning. I hope they accept my application. More than having an interest in business my main goal is to be a person who is worthy of respect. This means treating not only people with the proper respect but the environment too. This is why I was interested in being on this ThinkQuest team. Not only do I like the idea of a competition but the bees were really interesting to me, at least. How they collect pollen and nectar, bring it tiny civilization. Not to mention the environmental factors that could damage the hive and the honeybee. It was kind of sad to learn the honeybees are dying. They are such hard working creatures. Well, that is what I think! Besides learning bee basics, I also learned a lot about drawing and animation. This is an opportunity I would not have had anywhere else. It also helped me to write factual information as I really like to write fiction based stories. The other things you should know about me are I play cricket, attend the mosque regularly, have a huge family, six brothers and sisters, and I have a really good sense of humor. This was especially helpful at deadline time! I want to thank my father the rest of my family for supporting me on this journey!

Mrs. Papanikolau

Every year I participate in a ThinkQuest competition I am amazed at the capacity students have to learn new skills, especially tech skills. The students are the motivating force to help coach a team. Project based learning increases all academic skills, but more importantly it provides a bridge between the students in our program and the students in mainstream classes. It brings the school together as witness to our fundraiser. It does not matter how smart, how bright, how intelligent children are, if they cannot learn to communicate with others their potential is dwarfed and not fully realized. This team was a dream team, despite their diverse backgrounds, they managed to complete the project as a team, without any conflicts of any kind. They were all on the same page, supporting each other, to create an awesome site.

Team Collaboration

Our team collaborated in many different ways. The first way we collaborated was by setting up a way to communicate. We did this by creating a forum online, emails, telephone, and meeting in person any time we could arrange them. Communication on a project this big is very important since we all had so many ideas. The next way we collaborated was by brainstorming ideas. This is how we came up with the outline, or site map, which would guide our research, writing and drawing. This was also very important because it helped us stay focused or fill in gaps of information we might have initially missed in the original site map. Another example of our brainstorming is our list of questions for the beekeepers around the world and Dr. David Tarpy, Since each of us had a different topic to research, we needed, as a team, to put every thing we knew in a cohesive form for our interviews to be effective. Collaboration also involves setting goals and deadlines. We did this as a team, for instance, if one of our teammates found they did not really have a feel for the information and was falling behind a deadline, we either switched tasks willingly or lent a hand in the finished product. This goes for drawings and designs as well. Our team really worked very well together, we were like puzzle pieces that just fit. The same went for our fund raiser. We all had separate jobs, but it was the separateness that brought the whole together.

Team Diversity

Our team is from very diverse backgrounds. Two of us are from the United States. One is from Pakistan, one is from Mexico, one from Russia and one is from Vietnam. Four of us have only been in the United States, for two years. We represent three continents, our sports interests range from baseball to cricket and everything in between. Some of us play musical instruments, some of us take classes outside school, some of us have computers at home, some of us do not. Plus, we are all different religions as well. Did this matter? It did not. Our cultural, religious, academic, and family backgrounds are all different but we were a team. All those differences just made it more exciting to work on this project. This is because all of our points of views were valued and contributed to our website. Our team, just simply said, we respected each other, we were students working for the same goal on a project we all loved. This is really all that counts. Our diversity brought us together and enhanced our capacity to learn.

Ms. Beakey

This is the second ThinkQuest team I have coached and the experience was just as rewarding as last year. The students on this team were truly inspiring. They demonstrated boundless energy and dedication to a topic that, until now, was geared towards adults. The team was efficient at researching a huge topic and quickly decided what information was most needed and most impacting for students. Considering they did not know about honeybees and beekeeping to begin with, the students learned a great deal about honeybees, as well as Colony Collapse Disorder.

The technology aspect was the most exciting part to witness. Along with my co-teacher, Donna Papanikolau, I teach a technology block every Friday afternoon at our school. This "Tech Block" is for students of all backgrounds, interested in learning web design for ThinkQuest. The Empty Hive team was very adept at learning all kinds of skills needed to develop a complex site: graphic design and animation in Flash, tables and layering in Dreamweaver, and design in Fireworks. All team members worked on design elements for the website. Some were the primary graphic designers, while others focused more on Dreamweaver. I am truly amazed at how much the students researched, identified the most vital information, and translated everything into a design that is interactive and appealing to students their age.

I was equally inspired by the Hives Save Lives project. The team was so dedicated to this project and were able to capture the interest of an entire school. It was so amazing to see 4th and 5th grade students recognize that they do have a voice in this world and they have the power to make a difference in life.

I am so happy to have been part of this experience, I know it is one the team will never forget!