This was originally published in National Geographic Blog on Education:
This year the Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance (RIGEA) decided to hold a Global Connections Bookmark Contest to celebrate Geography Awareness Week. We asked the entrants to design a bookmark that shows their connection to a location in the world.
We were excited to receive over 100 entries from Rhode Island elementary and middle school students!
Here are the winners in the K-2 category:
Karah-Mia Reavis Her special spot is Minnesota because “Indians were there” and “2 million years ago there was an ice age (there)”.
Carlie Manning Carlie chose California because the “Golden Gate Bridge is very pretty” and also because “Disneyland is there”.
Helena Dudley Africa is Helena’s choice. She is curious about what Africa’s people eat and where they sleep.
All three winners in the K-2 category put much effort into their artwork and writing about their special place. Congratulations to you all!
Winners in the the 3-5 category:
Julia Correnti Julia chose Block Island, Rhode Island. On the back side of her bookmark she showed pictures of what Hurricane Sandy has done to Block Island and she did a great job on her writing.
Gregory Sundstrom Gregory’s spot is Kentucky. He did a nice job on his artwork and geographic details about the “horse state”.
Alexandra Buffi Alexandra’s special place is Italy because her great-grandparents emigrated from there. Careful artwork is another plus for this entry.
Zoe de Silva Zoe feels connected to Trinidad because her Dad was born there and she has pleasant memories of visiting there as a young child. Zoe did a great job describing where Trinidad is.
The 3-5 category winners all did a fine job and worked hard. Congratulations!
Winners in the 6-8 category:
Marissa Lescarbeau Marissa has a connection to England because her favorite band has members born there. Her bookmark included an excellent hand-drawn map of England.
Kiley McAleer Kiley picked Rhode Island’s capital city – Providence. She drew a detailed image of the city on her bookmark and described some of her favorite places in the city.
Kaleb Rubera Kaleb chose Greece because he is Greek! He made a two-sided bookmark, on one side drawing a map of the surrounding area of Greece and on the other side a chart of Greek mythology figures and Greek alphabet letters.
Dale Einhorn Dale’s global connection is Canada because his great-grandmother was born in Prince Edward Island. He has memories of enjoying time with his great-grandmother learning about birds.
A fine job was done by the 6-8 winners on their geographic descriptions of the places they chose and the reasons why they felt connected to their locations. Very well done – congratulations!
RIGEA will highlight some of these wonderful entries as rotating banners for our website. Please visit rigea.org to see the efforts of these Rhode Island students once again.
Special thanks to Artena Fairbairn, 6th grade teacher at E.G. Robertson Elementary School in Warwick, Rhode Island and teacher consultant and long-time member of RIGEA. Just about all the entries in in our “Global Connections Bookmark Contest” are from Artena’s school because she did such a good job motivating the student body to enter the contest!
*Alliance Coordinator’s note: the Bookmark Contest could not have been the great success that is was without the fantastic work by Ellen Thompson.
RHODE ISLAND GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION ALLIANCE 