Class of 2030

Students in Mrs. Joanne Broussard’s first grade class transformed a social studies lesson into a learning adventure that lasted most of the school year and had the attention of local media. During their study of cultural anthropology, the students watched a video about children in a Tongan village in Africa, and were moved by the differences between their own comfortable lives and the lives of the children they saw. They decided to host a cookie sale to send a girl to school through Heifer International. After taking over the Lafayette Campus kitchens to bake more than 1,000 cookies, they surpassed their goal of $275, and raised more than $700. With the opportunity to help in more than one way, the students worked with a fourth grade class to write persuasive essays, argued their cases to their classmates, and voted on two different Heifer International packages. They chose sending a girl to school, providing communities with clean, healthy water, and other projects. The upper school ExLabs creative communications class created a documentary of the project. Watch the video and learn more about what happens when teachers let students’ questions drive the educational experience here.