By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Fifty states and seven countries. Students in Brooke Reif's sixth-grade classroom at Eisenhower Elementary School in Great Bend got to see a piece of the world through postcards. Reif and four students presented their treasures to the USD 428 Board of Education during a luncheon at the school last Wednesday.
"At the beginning of the school year, I was thinking it would be really fun to almost have a pen pal system," Reif said. "I was on Facebook, and in one of the teacher groups, there was a postcard exchange. It started out as we just wanted one postcard from each state."
In February, Reif shared the project on the school's Facebook page hoping followers with friends from other states could spread the word. The typical Eisenhower Elementary post reaches between 700 and 1,000 Facebook users. That post was shared nearly 240 times and reached nearly 28,000 followers. Laurie Croft, a professor of education at the University of Iowa even reached out and helped spread the word.
The class did get postcards from all 50 states, including 14 from Arizona. Students also collected postcards from Japan, Germany, Netherlands, Morocco, South Africa, and Barbados. A photographer from Hawaii spent more than $30 to send a custom print to the class, and someone in New Jersey mailed a box of authentic saltwater taffy from the boardwalk. The mailer from Germany was once an Eisenhower student and now teaches abroad.
"It was more just 'let's learn about states' and it turned into a really big thing," Reif said. "They have been so excited. They come down about 1:30 going, 'Did we get any?' I think one day we had almost 25 come in the mail."
The students will soon pick a state or a country and prepare a presentation to include that state's customs, religions, languages, famous people and places, and population.