ANAHEIM : ‘States Fair’ a Learning Experience

Alfredo Becerra, Rocky Fennell and Harpreet Singh stood inside their homemade Hawaiian straw hut at Mattie Lou Maxwell Elementary School on Wednesday and shot back quick answers to rapid-fire questions from their schoolmates.

“What’s the state capital?” asked one.

“Honolulu,” answered Fennell. “What’s the state flower?” asked another.

“The hibiscus,” answered Becerra.

One by one, the fifth-grade boys, cramped inside the hut in front of a table covered with hibiscus flowers, mangoes, kiwis and maps of the state, informed their peers about Hawaii, earning their final grade in a three-part, U.S. history class project.

Known as the “States Fair,” the project is an annual event now in its fourth year. It is the brainchild of fifth-grade teacher Kay McGinty, who wanted to give the students a chance to learn history and test their skills outside the traditional classroom setting.

“This is a practical way to show what they’ve learned,” said Hal Eldred, another fifth-grade teacher involved with the project. “Anyone can copy a report from an encyclopedia. They really have to express themselves this way.”

Fifty fifth-grade students at the school drew lots to adopt a state and were instructed to build a booth detailing basic information about it, such as its capital, population, flower, bird, government leaders, economy and other notable facts. The results of their efforts were displayed on campus Wednesday.

At 10-year-old Charissa Worley’s Tennessee booth, her father helped her rig a speaker that blared out the “Tennessee Waltz” from a small tape recorder.

The front of Nani Dizol’s booth on Louisiana was plastered with local newspapers and displayed a plastic bag containing a dead crayfish, which, she informed passersby, is one of the mainstays of the southern state’s economy.

Jason Netwig’s Maine booth also had a shellfish element--a hand-crafted paper lobster and seashells. But the booth was a bit misleading.

“They’re not from Maine,” he said. “It’s just to get the atmosphere.”

Student visitors to the annual exhibit were impressed by their schoolmates’ work.

“It’s really neat,” said James An, 10, about his friend’s Iowa booth.

McGinty said that there are about 75 students in the fifth grade and that about 15 of them have limited English speaking skills. They paired up with other kids for the “States Fair” project, but all did oral and written reports individually.

“Some of them were only able to stand up in front of the class and say, ‘This is the state bird of Montana,’ ” McGinty said. “But they did it in English, and that was a major accomplishment.”