As a traditional history project at FC, the seventh graders hosted the 6th annual World Market. In previous years, the event was held in the Ground Zero courtyard. However, due to rain, the festivity was held inside the Peoples Church gym, April 12.

Throughout the year, the world history students learn about trading routes and the Silk Road. In order to put their studies into action, groups of students were assigned to countries such as Japan, India, Jerusalem, Arabia and Egypt. After months of hard work, their job was to sell hand made products that represented their country to the elementary, junior high and high school students.

In preparation for the festival, students began planning at the end of first semester. They researched their countries for more details and made countless homemade goods. Popular items included swords, jewelry and ethnic food.

Junior high English and history teacher, Natalie Douty, says that the World Market is beneficial for other subjects besides history. Douty is proud of her students for their hard work and dedication to the project.

“The big day finally arrived and the students did a wonderful job,” Douty said. “It works out well for both world history and English because they did a fictional autobiography on their World Market characters in English. This project is bringing everything together and it?s one big project to wrap up the year.”

Douty appreciates assistance from former seventh grade history teacher Ellen King, who has been helping for the past two years.

“I am so thankful and blessed to have Mrs. King?s help,” Douty said. “She is really the expert since she is the one who started this about ten years ago and knows exactly what to do. It has been great to have her.”

According to Abby Brown, ?16, she is impressed with the work the seventh graders put into the project. Although she enjoyed participating and re- visiting the country she covered last year, she would not want to do the project again, due to the enormous amount of work and preparation.

“I think the seventh graders did a really good job,” Brown said. “I did Egypt last year so seeing the Egypt booth brought back tons of good memories. But I would not want to do it again because it was a lot of work and was very time consuming.”

Seventh grader Phillip Christopher?s mother, Rhonda, believes that working together as a team and preparing early is crucial.

“The day has gone really smoothly,” Rhonda said. “All the members of our group work well together. I think the success is because we planned way in advance, starting months ago and it has gone very well.”

Rhonda says that although preparing the event took tremendous amount of work, it was an excellent way to make memories that will last for a lifetime.

“I love seeing the lifers that get to come back through and relive sweet memories for them and for the younger kids,” Rhonda said. “It is something to look forward to and they get to see everything the kids have done. I think the investment is priceless for what we’ve done at Fresno Christian.”

King says that through this assignment she wants the students to learn about business in real life and how to work with others.

“What I want the kids to learn from this experience is how business works and about the development of products,” King said. “I also want them to know the cost of raw materials and working with others. On the educational side, this is bringing the whole year of learning together.”

Seventh grader Jennifer King, who represented Japan, says that the project was stressful at first, but help from her friends and family made it a lot easier.

“It was such a big project, so it was very stressful,” King said. “But I stuck with it and worked really hard. I was able to receive help from my group members, so making the projects only took a short amount of time. I am really close to my friends who were in my group, so it was a fun experience to do it with them. ”

Jennifer?s mother, Beth King, says she is satisfied that her daughter had an opportunity to learn not only about factual details, but also valuable life skills.

“My job was to be supportive and encouraging with a little bit of guidance,” King said. “The real planning was done by the student team. I am glad they got to learn about other countries and how to organize, work with a team and about commerce in running a market booth.”

Senior Scott Jennings, who was one of the high school security patrollers at the event, says that he enjoyed browsing different types of products. Jennings also enjoyed the unique types of food that were served.

“It was fun doing security,” Jennings said. “Just being there brought back a lot of memories even though mine was outside. Being inside is a lot more roomy but either way is okay with me. Overall, I thought the students made some creative products and the food was delicious.”

For more information about World Market, read the April 29 article, World Market spotlights cultures, live entertainment.