Streams of Life: Water in the American West
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About
The
Idea
Lee and I had been thinking about doing a ThinkQuest project for a while, but
we couldn't come up with a good idea for the project. We originally were planning
to do one on the US's manned missions to the moon. I got a crate-full of books
and we started, but soon we found that the project was too big. In addition
it wasn't the most original idea. After brainstorming with our history teacher,
Ms. Yvovnne Tsang, I remembered a book that I had read the previous summer.
It was Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner. I found the book extremely interesting
and completely new. Everyone agreed that doing a project on water in the American
West would be both original and quite interesting.
Problems
Ugg, we had tons of problems. This was our first ThinkQuest project and we severelly
underestimated what it would take. On top of that, both Lee and I had really
full schedules and it wasn't until the second half of this summer that we finally
got time to work. While we go to the same school, working together was quite
hard. Our school's computer department was not setup to help us and it was near
impossible to get anything done there (even before the added homework load).
Lee lives something like thirty miles away from me, making it hard for us to
meet in person. In addition, communication online was difficult because Lee
did not have a reliable Internet connection. We got something done, though.
Maybe next year we'll do it again. We will then know what it takes it get everything
done.
Drew
I'm fifteen years old and live in Los Altos, California (the center o' Silicon
Valley). I've been interested in computers since I was young. I learned to program
at age ten and spent a couple years teaching at a computer camp. I am really
into reading and I find it a great way to learn about the world. I found out
about Cadillac Desert by watching the documentary which is based on the
book on a local PBS station. When I was not teaching during the summer I could
usually be found reading Cadillac Desert. While Lee was at the camp that
year, I did not know him yet. It turns out that we were going to go to the same
school the next year (we were both entering high school). I can't remember how,
but quite soon we became interested in ThinkQuest. We began work on the project.
To sum it up, I comtributed website design and server-side scripting and writing
skills to the project. In addition to computers my interests include math and
science, bike riding, reading, photography, astronomy, fish, and rabbits (I
wonder if anyone really cares). Want to see some other stuff I'm working on?
Visit www.drewnet.net and www.leftcoastpunk.com.
I can be reached at (email link disabled).
Lee
My name is Lee and I go to Crystal Spring Uplands School along with
Drew. I like programming and playing chess. I play basketball and golf. I am
almost 16 years old and my next pet project will be a text-based multi-user
game from scratch. You can e-mail me at: (email link disabled)
Yvoynne Tsang
Yvoynne Tsang
is a history teacher at Crystal Springs Uplands School (where Drew and Lee go)
in Hillsborough, California. She teaches Comparative Cultures--a history course
covering India, China and Japan--to 9th graders. She helped us come up with
our idea and proof-read some of our text.
Michael Thompson
Michael Thompson
is the computer teacher at Keys School (Drew's old school) in Palo Alto, California.
He teaches computer skills to kindergarden through eighth graders and teaches
other classes such as journalism. For our project he was a really under-used
resource.
Hardware
Software
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