At the beginning of the semester, Educational Humanities and Composition teacher Jenna Grater assigned her senior students to research a country of their choosing.

The students present them to the class, teaching their classmates about the countries’ traditions and culture.

“We just kind of present like historical facts like if you were to go and travel to this country, what like you could experience,” Taylor Hughston, senior, said. “I think the purpose of it was to really have knowledge about things outside of the country because we’re kind of used to what’s going on in the U.S. so kind of branching out to learn more about what’s out there rather than what we just know.”

Grater assigned requirements that included, the countries’ traditions, music style, clothing style, videos and documentaries that are made in the specific country and facts that correspond to country. It helps bring the country into the classroom.

Students were given the instructions and were assigned this assignment a couple weeks into the first semester. Students were given the option when to present during the semester. Some students chose to go in the first part of the semester or at the end of the semester.

“I actually was the first one to present in our class, which was back in September so I felt pretty confident,” Hughston said. “I’m not really shy when I had to talk in front of the class being able to confidently show like what I researched for like a while.”

The students were given a requirement to present in a range of 18-25 minutes but the students had all semester long to work on it.

“I enjoyed it. I think it’s really cool and interesting, something different and to learn about other countries,” Nadiyah Gamble, senior, said. “I get to be educated on other countries and their cultures and their traditions and unexposed to what they do in other countries.”

To gather the whole presentation all together, the students had to find a short story to summarize their country.

Including stereotypes, at the beginning of the project they were told to research their country of their choosing and teach their classmates that stereotypes are not necessarily right to do. They learned that stereotypes give off a bad vibe and ruin how Americans looks at other countries and their cultures.

“[Stereotypes are good to] get to know something or someone surely for who they are,” Gamble said.