Anna Grimaldo to visit Japan with other Idaho students

Anna Grimaldo, sophomore at Orofino High School, is going to Japan in July 2012. Anna was selected to travel to Japan with a delegation of high school students from across the state of Idaho. The program is being funded with a grant from the government of Japan. Anna Grimaldo will join a group of twelve Idaho students to learn about the culture, history, and people of Japan first hand. They will spend nearly two weeks in country. The hope is that they will share some of American culture with their counterparts, and bring back their new found knowledge and pass it on to their home communities.

The student trip is actually the second phase of a grant project submitted by Dr. Dan Prinzing of the Idaho Human Rights Foundation centered in Boise, Idaho. The first phase sent a team of 12 Idaho educators to Japan last summer. Michelle George, seventh grade teacher at Orofino Elementary, had the fantastic opportunity to be part of that group. The adults visited several major cities and cultural sites in Japan, including some public schools in Tokyo. The educators all wrote lessons plans on various aspects of Japanese culture that are now available on line to any interested teachers world-wide. All of the lesson plans can be found on the Idaho Human Rights Foundation web site: http://idaho-humanrights.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=12

During this second year, Anna will participate in a collaborative study of Japan with the other students from around Idaho. They will use the Internet to post projects and collaborate on their learning. They will be sharing their experiences with their home schools next year.

The third phase will bring Japanese students here to Idaho. Anna’s family will host one of the Japanese visitors for a couple of weeks in the third year of the program.

Anna Grimaldo was selected because she has demonstrated exceptional academic and personal qualities, along with an impressive desire to expand her experiences by visiting a country very far from home. Orofino can be very proud of her and confident that she will represent her home community well.