OCR Text |
Show DAILY HERALD Sunday, May 20. 2007 B7 Alaska students trade places in urban-rur- exchange program Uw V y A al Rachel D'Oro THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The PALMER, Alaska four students peered at the rows of butter in the refrigerator case. So many choices, so many prices in this sprawling supermarket almost 500 miles from their tiny village in west-er- n Jr- i x I .frf-Mii.- ... . Alaska. "This one is $3.75," said Aaron Ballot, jotting down the price. "This one is $2.99 a pound," teacher Peter Beachy pointed . i out. "But this is the kind weiave at home," Karstin Hadley said of the village store, where Ballot's choice the only brand available goes for $4.79. vr?- f 4m . : 7 Another lesson learned about urban life. s The from the Inupiat Eskimo village of Buckland are among dozens of Alaska students participating in a federally funded program that pairs remote schools with y their counterparts. In its seventh year, the Rose Urban Rural Exchange links classrooms with a shared cultural A x r eighth-grader- a asm x v i big-cit- U curriculum, culminating with selected students and teachers visiting each others' communities for a week. Thirty schools from across the state participated this year, with travel expenses covered by the program administered by the nonprofit Alaska Humanities Forum. Traveling students, called research ambassadors, and their teachers stay with host families. They visit their sister schools, work on educational projects and go on field trips that apply to classroom topics ' Hi" I 1 t O U I AL GRIUOAssociated Press Aaron Ballot right and Karstin Hadley write down the price of butter at the Fred Meyers store in Palmer, Alaska, on May 9. Ballot and Hadley are two of the four eighth-grader- s visiting urban Alaska from the Inupiat Eskimo village of Buckland as part of the Rose Urban Rural Exchange program. e e mlj m Canton and fellow ambas- sador Heidi O'Hara, 13, were stunned at the cost of food in the village store. A large bag of potato chips goes for $7.15. A dozen eggs cost $4.99. Other surprises: the flat terrain, houses built on stilts as protection against a river prone to overrun its banks, a 10 p.m. curfew for minors and no indoor plumbing except at the school and in teacher housing. Homes are equipped with honey buckets, typically plastic pails used as toilets, and the village has a washeteria, which is a combination laundry and public shower. But the girls also saw ways their new friends were much IHlUii MM On the Net: 1 J M ONLY A o 0 center front, Aaron Ballot back right and teacher Peter Beachy rear watch DeAnne Sabol right feed a musk ox at the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer, Alaska on May 9, 2007. mrt 7" m I 13 THE LOW 4 - L r. f I $300,000 801.556.4648 I 10 WINDOWS LIMITED TIME No PaymentZ Wasatch Vinyl Products Uijtt OttJBtVv LOW Filce" I ljZpctober2007c I I -- nAAAT I I 877-922-72- 83 or I'm twi 733-563ml mmmv 3 mmm Exp,res53107l tmmw mwmw mwm - mmwrn mmm tmrnrn u our guest at an Be Saturday, June 2 n JVo meet growing health care needs, Central Clinic's new American Fork campus is Utah nowopen. Our new campus features: Cardiology Gastroenterology Imaging Center featuring a new (Jj&ev MRI Internal Medicine Laboratory Surgery Center sure to attend for , $29851 if i Be j INSTALLED I Easy Clean Feature Lifetime Guarantee Energy Efficient Quality Installation R f krJ Angic GOLDBERG 1 t s Some restrictions apply. J Press GRILLOAssociated Ticke, Kate Jones http:www.akhf.org HOMES REMAIN. STARTING FROM 't sjs& AL Students Karstin Hadley leftChristian http:www. CALL TODAY FOR EXCLUSIVE INCENTIVES 801.755.9333L v.v, 3? I ! rS ATM 38t' I I roseurbanruralexchange.org nu trm Kim McKINLEY - . 1 I JWil 'WWiSMi nil J like them, despite living in such a remote place. Most people have dogs and all the teenagers, it seems, have laptop computers. Many families subscribe to the online movie rental service Netflix. By the end of their visit Canton and O'Hara felt right at home. "We're thinking of going back this summer," Canton said. 1 (to iTVriV7TW rn v vn 1 ttKMM - , , coin-operat- kjtirx.cooumc ir.uvH- I m at the vast choices and lower schools documented the visits witlvphotos and audio recordprices of everyday goods, ings to share with classmates particularly gasoline, which costs $6 a gallon in the village. back home. Competition for five ambasThey noted the hugeness of the malls, the stores and multiranging from health care, edu- sador positions was intense cation and transportation to among the Mirror Lake partici- plexes, where Ballot watched 3" with his host subsistence foods, leadership "Spider-Ma- n pants. About 25 students who and economy. The point is to wanted the role turned in esfamily only his second time ever in a theater. Even their build understanding between says, saying why they should be chosen to go to Buckland. sister school, with a student rural and urban Alaskans. enrollment of 680, houses more The essay winners were Through it all, there's the mesreserved the first day in the vilpeople than their entire village. sage to students that cultural differences can be valued as They had a blast, but urban lage, according to seventh-gradlife was a bit overwhelming for teacher Amber Fischer, who strongly as similarities. traveled with the group. By the "It's bringing these issues Hadley. "It's too big for me," she second day, her charges were close to their understanding," said. "It's too busy here." said Panu Lucier, director of part of the teen social scene. In their venture north, the the exchange program. "They "By the time we left, they Mirror Lake students also got have the opportunity to injust wanted to be with the immersed in an unfamiliar setkids," Fischer said. "It's a wonvestigate them on their own. went Instead of reading about them derful experience, a good proting. The seventh-grader- s in a book, they get to experigram to have around. It makes ice fishing for sheefish, an imence these issues first hand. the kids appreciate everything portant Subsistence food. They For example, they're learning they have and there are also a learned native dancing, carved swans out of caribou antlers about subsistence, how it's lot of similarities." handled in rural and urban In their journey south the and sewed traditional cloth areas and what it means to the Buckland students toured a parkas called kuspuks. They learned a body slamming game local people." musk ox farm, the state crime The Buckland students lab, a local landfill, a vocational called buckbuck. visited Mirror Lake Middle Tilly Canton said she entraining center and the UniSchool in the Anchorage subjoyed a soup made by her host versity of Alaska Anchorage. urb of Chugiak this month. The They ate Big Macs and fries at family, then learned ingredients included the heart and McDonald's, splashed around previous week a group from at an indoor water park and Mirror Lake traveled north tongue of caribou. "It's a different kind of culto Buckland population 418 compared grocery prices at a a treeless community built ture, a different way of living," supermarket in Palmer, just said of her first north of Anchorage. the on tundra just below the ArcThe teenagers were amazed visit to a native village. tic Circle. Students from both slit: V I 1 teo events for the entire family! cfsl Central Utah Clinic Your Health, Your Choice. 1 0 a.m. to 2 p.m. Adults Cholesterol Checks (Please fast for previous 12 hours.) Blood Sugar Screenings Bone Density Heel Scans (10 a.m to Noon) Blood Pressure Readings Sleep Disorders Analysis Children Stuffed Animal Clinic (Bring your stuffed toy for a check up.) Free bike helmets More Tours Refreshments Giveaways 1175 East 50 South, American Fork 418.0812 J - If |