Introduction

Would you like to go to China? If you could, where would you go? What would you be most interested in seeing? The Great Wall? The Forbidden City? Maybe you would like to explore some of the natural settings like the Himalaya mountain range or Lushan Mountain or maybe the raging Yellow River or the Three Gorges. Even if you could tour all these sites, it's likely that you would learn more about a China that doesn't always make it into the guidebooks. China is in the midst of great growth and change.

You now have the chance to take a virtual tour of China. Explore those areas that are most interesting to you. Peek into places the typical tourist might not go. Be adventurous. And bring back lots of souvenirs!

Instructions

Your task is to surf through the Internet links below and find pictures, text, maps, facts, quotes, or controversies that capture your exploration of China. You will capture the text and images that you find important and then you will put them together in a multimedia scrapbook. Follow you interests, but be prepared to share why you chose what you did and what it means to you.

Several Tools are linked on this page to help you complete and show your scrapbook.

Specifically, you will:

1. Surf the Internet sites linked below.
2. Copy any text you want by dragging across the words then using the Edit - Copy command on the menubar.

Paste the Text into a basic text editor, word processor, desktop publishing program or multimedia software.

3. Save images you like by downloading them (Note: check with the authors of the page to see if any copyright rules apply. Usually students are allowed to download images that will only be used in the classroom. A good practice to get into is to use the email link on the page that has an image you want an ask permission. You might be surprised at the response you get.)
4. Either paste the images you've downloaded into a multimedia, paint or desktop publishing program (like HyperStudio, Clarisworks, or PageMaker) or use one of the graphics viewers listed as Tools on this page to display your collection of images.
5. Once you have created your scrapbook, go over it carefully so that you can give clear and thoughtful reasons why you found the things you collected especially important.

Places

• Study a Map of China (260K) in relation to its neighbors, and Its Provinces and Other Regions
• Images of Scenery and Sights in China - from the China News Digest
• China Virtual Tours from ChinaVista
• South China by Bicycle a personal travelogue
• Scenery from the Art of China Homepage

Facts & News

• The U.S. Army Handbook - read the Country Profile (overview) or any of 14 separate chapters (note: these are text documents).
• Current Issue of AsiaWeek from Time Magazine
• China News Digest - News bulletins updated every two days.
• Recent Articles on China from the Washington Post

Culture & Politics

• The Chinese Zodiac may offer you insights on yourself and people around you.
• Chinese Proverbs with Annotations and Connotations, compiled by Haiwang Yuan
• English Translation of Classical Chinese Poetry from China the Beautiful
• "The Way of Life," according to Lao-Tzu is a collection of Taoist (pronounced "Dowist") wise sayings.
• Frequently Asked Questions about Zen which was known as Ch'an in China.
• Deng Xiaoping from Asiaweek magazine
• The Dalai Lama's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
• Seven Things You can do to Help Tibet
• Why Boycott? from the boycott made in china campaign website
• OneWorld News Service's Page on China
• Nanking 1937 memorializes the Japanese massacre of Chinese citizens.
• The South China Morning Post is the leading English Newspaper in Hong Kong

Images

• Photos of Landmarks / Scenes from China News Digest
• A Variety of Arts, from the Art of China Web site
• The Splendors of Imperial China from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
• Mongolia: The Legacy of Chinggis Khan, presented by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
• Chinese Painting - China the Beautiful
• Appreciation of The Art of Chinese Calligraphy from China the Beautiful

Tools

References
• Hypertext Webster Dictionary lets you quickly get definitions to words. See if you can bookmark this as a favorite site so you can get to it easily.
• Roget's Internet Thesaurus allows you to find words that have similar meanings.

  Software
  

• JPEGView (Macintosh) is great for showing images you get from the Web
• Lview Pro (Windows) lets you show pictures you get from the Web
• HyperStudio is used at many schools. Check out the Website for support, ideas, and the Netscape Plug-In (requires Mac & Netscape 2.0)
• Shareware.com gives you access to thousands of software programs you may want to use to show off your scrapbooks.
• Of course you could use an HTML editor or presentation software (like Microsoft PowerPoint) to create a Web page of your scrapbook.

Last revised March 3, 2004 Created by Tom March, tom at ozline dot com Applications Design Team/Wired Learning