Over the past six weeks, Ms. Lynch's 3rd-grade students have been creating geographical flip books and bar graphs, and are now working on posters and strategies for the promotion of our school-wide campaign. Our goal is to raise awareness and pennies to donate to the Central Asia Institute for the building of schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The flip books look great. Each student started by stapling together seven overlapping pages. The top page says, "Where in the World Do I Live?" and has a self-portrait on it. The succeeding pages go from the student's street address, to the town, to the state, to the country, to the continent, to the planet on which he or she lives.
As a class we made one large flip book for the children of Korphe, showing that they live in Korphe, in the region of Baltistan, in the country of Pakistan, on the continent of Asia, on our Planet Earth.
The bar graphs we made compare the value of pennies in the U.S. to their value in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The students learned that the exchange rate is currently about 85 Pakistan Rupees (PKR) for each U.S. Dollar (USD). Whereas $1 might buy a small candy bar here in the U.S., it would pay a teacher's salary for half a day in Pakistan.
We are working on getting a local corporate sponsor for our campaign, and will soon be sending a message home to parents about how we can all contribute--one penny at a time--to the education of children around the world.
Look for examples of the students' work in the display cases at the front of the school building, and for our posters and penny donation containers in the coming weeks.
