Students learn how to research, plan a trip

Paper suitcases were packed full of information and hung on the white board.

Each suitcase had a destination on them, places to visit, foods to try and who was going on the trip.

Monroe Intermediate School students were challenged to select a country they would like to visit, research the country and plan a trip to the country they selected.

MIS teacher Terri Jones said the students could pick any country they wanted to and had the option of collaborating with another classmate.

"Some immediately had a country in mind, while others made their selection after viewing their options in our media center," Jones said.

The assignment came from a different book report the students were given earlier in the year. Jones said one student continued to suggest a country book report and the rest of the class was excited about it too.

Students picked Mexico, Italy, United Kingdom, Bahamas, Portugal, Japan, Argentina, Greece, Denmark, Russia and Ireland. After completing their research, the students created a travel brochure about their country. 

Jones said the students had specific requirements during the planning process, such as needing to know about the climate, main language, airline costs, places to eat, interesting landforms, culture, currency and packing necessities.

"It was exciting listening to them collaborate as most chose to work with a partner on the same country," she said.

The students learned important reading and gathering information skills from informational texts. 

"This assignment created an opportunity for students to use several different informational texts on the same topic for an authentic purpose, which was to obtain information that they wanted or needed to know to complete their task." she said.

Students obtained information in various ways, including books, internet and personal interviews. Some students had relatives living in the countries they wanted to visit and called those relatives to gather more information. Not only did the students collect information, but they were tasked with selecting a recipe to make or an artifact to show the class. The students then gave presentations to the class and prepared their food item. Students who had an artifact showed the class their artifact and information about it.

The students were having a great time sharing their reports, artifacts and food in the class.

Eliza Burgess has an uncle who lived in Portugal for two years. She talked to him about the country for part of her report. Burgess was not sure what food to make her class, but her last-minute decision to make "queijadas," a bite-sized dessert.

"I learned some real interesting things about Portugal," she said. "I thought it was really fun."

Her classmate River Kirst enjoyed learning about the lifestyles, artifacts and facts of Japan. He choose to show an artifact, which was a necklace with a Japanese symbol on it. He said his aunt had lived in Japan; and that sparked his interest in the country.

"It was exciting to have several parents attend the presentation and in one case, one of the students had her sister come in to support her," Jones said. "It was also inspiring to see this project produce a positive family interaction not only with the attendance for some, but the home-school connection it created even for those families that were unable to attend."