Picture perfect geography

Andrew Edwards

The world is coming to Village View Elementary School one postcard at

a time.

Third-grade teacher Connie Petersen has engaged her class in a

year-long project to collect postcards from all over the United

States and the World. She asked students to contact friends and

family outside of Surf City and ask them to mail postcards from

far-flung locales.

The goal, Petersen said, is for the students to develop a solid

sense of geography.

“When they come to third grade, they usually don’t know the

difference between a state and a country,” she said.

So far, the class has collected about 240 postcards from most of

the 50 states and from countries on every continent, except

Antarctica.

When new postcards come in, the students receiving the mail take

center stage and present the new arrival.

John Shattles, 9, whose grandfather has traveled all over Asia,

showed off a newly arrived postcard from Vietnam.

“It’s in Ha Long Bay,” he said, describing the picture to the

class.

“[There are] two boats are right on shore.”

John’s grandfather has also mailed postcards from China, Thailand

and Hong Kong. John would like to travel the world one day himself,

and that one of the countries he wants to see is Australia.

Justin Neese shared three new postcards from Key West, London and

Seattle.

As he showed the postcards, Petersen quizzed the class on where

they came from. Nicole Allegre, 9, told the class where to find

Seattle on a map.

“It’s a city located on the top, Washington,” she informed the

class.

Justin picked out London on the map by jumping to point at

England.

Children have collected a wide variety of cards, like 9-year-old

Andrew Sallenbach, who received cards from Ireland, the Czech

Republic, Mexico, Australia among other places.

“I’m getting one from Iraq,” he said.

Two postcards from Colombia were sent to 8-year-old Jenna

Martinez, who has relatives living in the South American nation,

which she would like to visit one day.

“It looks fun and my brother says he really likes it,” she said.