Grant to offer Hawthorne kids a global view

Leslie Edwards has a goal to help her third-grade students think more globally.

Thanks to a grant from the 100 percent For Kids Credit Union Education Foundation, she is closer to reaching her goal.

The foundation awarded Hawthorne Elementary, 1675 S. 600 East, the school where Edwards teaches, a $5,151 grant Feb. 13 to improve the school's geography-based learning with new maps, globes and textbooks.

"It's my responsibility as a teacher to teach these kids to think globally," she said. "If they don't have an understanding of the culture and others' belief systems, they won't understand why this group thinks this way or why a whole region (does that)."

Because most students are visual learners, Edwards feels the best way to improve their global perspective is with the use of classroom maps. After doing an inventory at Hawthorne, Edwards discovered that the school's maps were outdated and some classrooms didn't even have any.

She teamed with Karen Bennett, a member of the Salt Lake City School Board who had a child in her class, and the two researched how much it would cost to purchase new maps for the school.

"The teachers felt frustration with their inability to teach (geographical) concepts without appropriate materials," Bennett said. "(Leslie and I) started investigating how much it would cost for good quality maps.... It turned out to be a lot, $11,000 for everything and $5,000 to get the bare minimum."

That's when the two approached 100 Percent For Kids with a grant proposal. Even though they weren't able to get the whole amount they need, Edwards says the $5,100 is a good start. She plans to apply for additional funding from a few other foundations and reach her goal.

Her goal is to purchase a series of pull down maps specific to the needs of each grade level. For example, with the focus on United States history in fifth grade, the maps might have several different depictions of how the U.S. has changed over the years. The sixth-grade set would have world maps, with several showing how it might have looked during different periods of occupation, such as the Greek and Roman empires.

Bennett said they also want to purchase atlases for students to look through. Both feel it's essential for students to understand the perspective of the world.

"We live in such a world where our place on the planet and on the globe is so central in the way we look at the world," Bennett said. "It's very difficult to communicate those concepts of how flat the globe is and how interconnected we are without the appropriate tools."

---

E-mail: twalquist@desnews.com