News comes back to school

Two local news organizations and the Utah Education Network are teaming up to bridge world events to what kids are learning in the classroom.

KSL-TV, the Deseret Morning News and UEN have created NewsByte, a service posted on the UEN Web site, www.uen.org, that offers schoolteachers weekly news topics and corresponding news snippets, activities and where it all fits into the state core curriculum.

The organizations believe the efforts will bring real-world relevancy to instruction as students return to classrooms across the state this month.

"The nice thing about news is usually it's interdisciplinary . . . so we can tie it to multiple curriculum areas and grade levels," said Laura Hunter, UEN director of instructional services. "It mirrors how people learn."

UEN combines state colleges and universities, school districts, the State Office of Education, Utah's electronic college and high school and the state's library system into an electronic network of educational resources. The aim is to improve student achievement and use services efficiently.

NewsByte is a new addition to the network, free of charge to anyone who wants to use it. It works like this:

The three groups pick NewsByte's weekly topic, which has ranged from new smoking bans to discovery of ancient Indian ruins in Utah. The TV station and newspaper forward corresponding video and print articles. The Deseret Morning News' Newspapers in Education department writes activities. And UEN researches curriculum ties and posts related content and keywords kids can plug in to continue their research in an online library of sorts.

The result is a gamut of information and easy-access lesson plans allowing students of all ages to delve into an issue.

And delve they do — when the topic appeals to them.

Eric Heiselt's Bryant Intermediate students over the summer discussed Utah's bankruptcy problem, and discovered on their own why it might be so high.

"They thought if you declare bankruptcy, all your bills disappear," Heiselt said of his Salt Lake District students. "(The discussion) was able to help them look at the bigger picture."

Those are the kinds of skills that help children do better on tests mandated by the state and federal No Child Left Behind Act, Heiselt said. They also prepare students for life.