ICCR students host World Geography Day

Jen Cowart

Posted 4/1/15

The students in the two fifth-grade classes at Immaculate Conception Catholic Regional School hosted a World Geography Day last Thursday, March 26.

After starting their in-depth studies early in …

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ICCR students host World Geography Day

LOTS TO SHARE: Chaz Storey showed guests at his presentation the gifts brought back from Australia for him by his father, who was in the Coast Guard. “I have a boomerang and a didgeridoo, both of which my dad brought me. I also used lots of the postcards he sent me from his trips in the Coast Guard,” Storey said. Kyle Thompson was very intrigued by what he learned about one of New Zealand’s native birds, the kiwi bird. “I learned that New Zealand has a special bird, the kiwi bird and it is endangered, only found in New Zealand. It has no wings and two legs,” he said.

Herald photos by Jen Cowart

UNIQUE PROJECTS: Brady McGloin, Emma Diko and Adriana Macera chose to study Chile, Bolivia and Argentina, respectively. “I didn’t realize that Chile claims some of Antarctica as its own,” McGloin said. “The population in Bolivia is over 10 million people, and that’s something new that I learned,” said Diko, while Macera was amazed to find out that Argentina was the first country to utilize fingerprinting.

DREAM DESTINATIONS: Caroline Quirk and Caroline Cloxton each chose a country that they’d love to visit one day in the future. “I dance for the Kelly School of Irish Dance, so I wanted to learn about Ireland,” Cloxton said. It was the appeal of the rich French history that drew Quirk to learn more about France. “It’s the most visited country in the whole world, so I really want to go there,” she said.

A LOVE OF HISTORY: Thomas Missirlis was drawn to Egypt because of its age and history. “I love learning about old things in history, and there was lots of information about Egypt’s history,” Missirlis said. The one thing that struck Tyler Truesdell as unique about Somalia’s history was the fact that the country became independent without having its own written language. “So they were without a written language for 12 years,” he said.

FAMILY HERITAGE: Jasmine Konow chose to research the Philippines because her mother hails from that country. “I wanted to learn more about her country and I learned that the flag has many symbols on it – an eight-rayed sun, three golden stars, one blue stripe and one white triangle,” she said.

WELL STOCKED: Harrison Braica’s mother has traveled all over the world, and brought many of his English souvenirs back with her, including his hat. “I knew a lot about the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace,” he said. “But I also learned things I didn’t know, like Big Ben is actually well-known for the bell that’s inside of it.”

Posted Wednesday, April 1, 2015 2:01 pm

Jen Cowart

The students in the two fifth-grade classes at Immaculate Conception Catholic Regional School hosted a World Geography Day last Thursday, March 26.

After starting their in-depth studies early in January, and working piece-by-piece on their research projects and papers for many weeks, the students were more than ready to share what they had learned.

“Each student had to pick a continent out of a hat, and then choose a country from that continent to research,” said Patrice Beverly, one of the two teachers. “The project took place over time and encompassed three tiers. They had to find their basic information and write an introduction to their research paper first. Then they had to research even further and find more details. Finally, they had to sum up all of their ideas and construct three questions to answer about all they had found.”

The project was done in manageable steps in the classroom, with the typing being completed at home, and both Beverly and her colleague in the other class, Marilyn Day, agree that the students managed the projects well and learned a great deal.

“They were so capable of completing each step of the project and to watch them develop these skills, to do this research was really amazing,” Day said.

Many students chose countries that were personally meaningful to them in some way, while others chose countries that they were interested in learning about or wanted to spotlight so others could learn more about them. In some cases, the students knew so much about their countries that finding something they didn’t know was harder than they thought it would be.

“I’m actually from Columbia, so it was hard for me to learn something new, but I did learn that the church buildings in Colombia are some of the most important buildings in all of the country, and that really amazed me,” Gustavo Londono said.

Many of the students reported out about current events, government and population statistics during their presentations.

“The population in Argentina is 42,192,500,” Mia Ducharme said. “That was interesting to me and was something new that I learned.”

On the evening of March 26, the students not only presented their projects and gave their reports, but also hosted a World Geography food event, bringing in a selection of recipes and food items representative of the countries they’d chosen to study.