IN THE CLASSROOM:All the world’s a song in geography class

Ally Simpson and Chelsea Davis have a ways to go before they learn the names of every country in the world. Actually, they have about 23 bars left.

Last week, Girls Inc. of Orange County launched a geography unit to acquaint students with the far reaches of the globe. As a learning device, teacher Angela Hartwig provided the girls with the lyrics to a song from the “Animaniacs” cartoon series that lists every country in the world — or most of them, anyway — with occasional compromises made for rhyme and meter.

By the second day of the geography unit, Ally, 9, and Chelsea, 10, had memorized the first verse of the song to the tune of the “Mexican Hat Dance”:

United States, Canada, Mexico, PanamaIt was a creative introduction to learning about cultures far removed from Costa Mesa.

Haiti, Jamaica, Peru

Republic Dominican, Cuba, Caribbean

Greenland, El Salvador, too.

“My goal is to have that entire board, and even the wall surrounding it, covered with research they’ve done around the world,” Hartwig said, pointing to the map on the wall.

On Thursday, about a dozen girls gathered at the site to do Internet research about countries in Africa. The class found out about climate, language, forms of government and other aspects that make up a nation.

It was familiar ground for at least one student.

Hannah Clark-Nixon, 7, came from Ethiopian heritage and visited Africa, where her uncle runs a hot-air balloon service, a few years ago. Her memories of the continent were vague, but she recalled it being much more spacious than the United States.

“There’s more plants, I think,” she said. “It’s kind of a desert.”

Other girls said that researching the way of life in African countries made them feel relieved to live where they did.

“It kind of makes me feel bad because people in other countries don’t get the things we do,” Ally said. “They barely get any technology.”

In the future, administrators planned to hold a soccer match to celebrate Latin American culture and teach Middle Eastern-style belly dancing. Development director Showleh Tolbert said the unit was meant to hone research skills as much as geographical savvy.

“The purpose is not only to learn geography, but to combine technology with that,” she said.