IBM Endicott MentorPlace Program Helps Students Meet NYS Learning Standards --While Helping Them Develop Into Lifelong Learners

     Jim McAndrew had a game for his 21 students. But this was no playground
        exercise for recess. The sixth-grade teacher in the Union-Endicott School
         District's Jennie F. Snapp Middle School in Endicott, NY, challenged his

          students -- and the IBM mentors
          they had been matched with
          through their school's participation
          in the IBM MentorPlace program --           to play the "Lost" game. Little did
         the students know that while playing
        the game, the skills they were       learning with the help of their mentors
    would also be helping them achieve
  the goals set out in several New York

educators throughout the U.S., and in a number of other countries
in meeting academic standards, while developing students into lifelong learners.

To play the "Lost" game, students and mentors worked in teams to find the location of five
major volcanoes around the world, starting with only the longitude and latitude coordinates. When
a team found a volcano, they would place a pin on a large map of the world. Mentors sent their
mentees Web sites to help them access information about the country where they had found each
volcano. Students kept logbooks in which they journaled their experiences and discoveries about
the countries they were "traveling" through. The mentors encouraged their students to record what
they were seeing and doing as they moved around the world.

With the help of their mentors, students also researched the magnitude of the last major eruption,
and learned about the physical and social effects of several major eruptions. Students and mentors
studied the history of each volcano by reading documents found on the Internet and located their
volcano on a plate tectonics map.

Students reached Standard 2, Technology, by accessing, generating, processing and transferring information via computer. To meet Standard 3, Mathematics, students learned to communicate and reason mathematically by applying math in real-world settings with the help of their mentors. In another standards category "Career Development and Occupational Studies", students met Standard 1, Career Development, when they learned about their mentors' jobs and gained an awareness of the world of work. They also explored career options, and related personal skills, aptitudes and abilities to future career decisions.

The project ended with an enthusiastic pizza party with several mentors visiting the classroom and both students and mentors giving presentations. Each group of students prepared a report with models and poster-size diagrams of their volcanos. Mentors gave a presentation on the solar system and other topics in the curriculum. Many of the mentors expressed how much fun they had working with the students.

"The MentorPlace program has been a huge success," said Jim McAndrew. "The students received individualized help in many subject areas and developed good communication skills. The school learned how to work effectively together with a large corporation. And I learned that having a mentor for each of my students is a great way to help them develop into lifelong learners."