The Garden State becomes the giving state Linwood Middle School, others, send info to a student doing N.J. project BY JENNIFER AMATO Staff Writer Kayla Figueroa, with her teacher Brian Gilmore, from Rhode Island, holds the Rutgers basketball tickets sent to her by a class at Linwood Middle School for a project she did on New Jersey. NORTH BRUNSWICK - Beach shells. A diner menu. A package of tomato seeds. Ticket stubs from local professional sports teams. Tickets to a Rutgers University women's basketball game. Books on the Legislature, New Jersey and Rutgers. Printed articles from the Weird NJ magazine. Items that seem so common to the people of New Jersey were quite the surprise for Kayla Figueroa, a seventh-grade student at Joseph Jenks Junior High School in Pawtucket, R.I. As a geography assignment, her teacher Brian Gilmore asked his students to choose a state to study. The most critical component was having the students write to various state newspapers to ask residents to send firsthand information to the class. Marian Felberbaum of Linwood Middle School did just that. After Principal Pete Clark read Kayla's letter in a January issue of the Sentinel, the teacher assigned an extra credit project for her classes, as did another teacher, Kristine Schilder. "I was excited to see that seventhgrade students elsewhere were studying our state as we do theirs. I thought this was an excellent way to go about finding primary source information and, therefore, thought we would try to help Kayla," Felberbaum said. Gilmore, who is only in his second year of teaching, got the idea for the newspaper writing from a college professor he had. Although he said his former teacher did not believe he would be successful, he said the kids have taken a real initiative into the project. "If you could look at the kids' expressions on their faces when they see someone else they don't know put stuff together," Gilmore said, "they understand that firsthand material … is a lot more valuable than what they see on the computer screen." The students went to the computer lab to research newspapers and then mailed letters to the editor. Kayla wrote to three papers and received 20 to 30 responses. "I chose New Jersey because of its closeness to us here in Rhode Island. I have driven through New Jersey on vacation but never really spent any time there. I guess you could say I wanted to learn more," she said. "I could not believe that so many people from New Jersey sent me materials. I didn't think that so many people would care." Kayla said the only thing she remembers about Jersey "is a lot of traffic." Instead, the two classes told the Rhode Island middle-schooler that New Jersey is home to the first boardwalk in the United States and the first baseball and college football games. Jersey is known for the Liberty Science Center and many diners, universities, professional sports teams and pharmaceutical companies. There are Jersey tomatoes, the Delaware Water Gap, the Pinelands and historical sites where the Revolutionary War took place. They also mentioned that New Jersey was part of the Constitutional Convention and early ratification process of the U.S. Constitution. "I learned that New Jersey has a lot of agriculture and is also dependent on tourism in some parts of the state. I also learned that New Jersey has more animals living in it than I thought. Also, there are some rural parts of New Jersey and not just all cities," Kayla said. The Rhode Island native said she especially liked ticket stubs to the New Jersey Devils, the tickets to the Rutgers game and brochures on places to visit. "The time the students put into sending the packet really showed. Some students even wrote me letters to tell me about themselves and their families," she said.G ilmore said his other students have been successful as well. His class has received about 20 to 30 packages, with one woman mailing a $35 package from Hawaii. They will each created a poster board to share with fifth-graders from the nearby elementary school, an essay, an oral presentation and a display of the photographs and artifacts sent to them. "For one, [the state participants] get to put together what they know about their state, and on our end, the information is helping the students excel by leaps and bounds," Gilmore said of the municipal information, parks and recreational sites and letters from congressmen that have been sent. Felberbaum added, "Although we do study our country and our state at the beginning of the year, we tend to forget about New Jersey as the year progresses and we study other countries. This information sharing with Kayla helped us to recall previously acquired knowledge about New Jersey and it helped us to focus on the good and interesting things New Jersey has offered to our country and continues to offer it." The teacher said, "It seems like an excellent possibility" that she will implement this type of project in her classroom, especially since she received positive feedback from Gilmore. As for Kayla, although she has never been to Jersey, she hopes to visit one day. "I have a different view of New Jersey. I learned that the people are awesome in New Jersey. They take an interest in students from out of their state. I also learned that New Jersey isn't just a place to drive through but a state I would want to stop and visit and explore. New Jersey seems like a good place to consider when I am looking at colleges. Mr. Gilmore said I need to keep working hard to get into a school like Rutgers," she said. Kayla received a 19 out of 20 for her report, poster board and presentation, with one point taken off for spelling errors. "Mr. Gilmore is a hard grader," she said.