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Lake Belton students visit with folks in 18 countries during marathon project
World geography students at Lake Belton High School visit with a woman in Egypt during a Zoom call as part of The World Tour, an 18-hour project where the students Zoomed with people in 18 countries Friday. The students are in the Advanced Placement Human Geography class of Brianna Rodriguez. Courtesy photo
DAVID STONE | OUR TOWN TEMPLE
School started a bit early Friday for a group of Lake Belton High School world geography students. At 5:30 a.m., they began a series of global conversations that would keep them in class and on Zoom calls until midnight.
“We call it The World Tour,” said Chris Lemley, Belton ISD’s social studies coordinator. “We are talking to 18 people from 18 countries over 18 hours. The idea is to connect kids with people around the world who are doing cool things.”
Call No. 1 — the really early one — went to a game designer in Malaysia who is a celebrity of sorts.
“He starred in a movie, Crazy Rich Asians, so it was fun connecting with him,” Lemley said.
“So far we have talked to people in Bangladesh, Iran and India,” he said around noon Friday. “Right now, Lake Belton students are visiting with a class at a high school in Poland. The teacher there is a friend of mind, and she has done a similar project where we were on the receiving end of a call.”
This is the second year that Lake Belton High has launched a day of Zoom. This year, 27 students took part in the assignment and two students from last year were back as advisors.
“Most of the kids will be here the entire time,” Lemley said. “We have a few that have to leave early because of extracurricular activities.”
This year, the project was organized by Advanced Placement Human Geography instructor Brianna Rodriquez, who worked to set up the calls along with Lemley.
“Brianna and LBHS principal Jill Ross worked hard to get this organized, and they even secured snacks to keep the kids full and happy,” Lemley said. “This is quite a program. We got the idea from a school in Flower Mound, and we loved the idea.”
“The purpose of the project is to get to know other cultures,” he said. “We ask the people we call about their ways of life, economics and politics, and we do this in a very personal way. The students take notes and the information they learned will be applied in geography and social studies assignments throughout the year.”
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