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Culture Kits for local school kids

TO: Texas Tech University International Students
FROM: Dianne Crowley, Senior Director
College of Education
K-12 International Education Outreach
International Cultural Center
Texas Tech University
(806)742-0426
dianne.crowley@ttu.edu

Texas Tech University is very fortunate to have so many international students from many different countries attending classes here in Lubbock. TTU’s international students add so much to the cultural mosaic of the campus and the city.

All international students at Texas Tech have been to the International Cultural Center (ICC) for some reason or another, either seeing an advisor or to participate in programs or activities. You may not be aware that there is another component to the ICC – the K-12 International Education Outreach. Each year the K-12 outreach program reaches about 20,000 local and area students, teachers and parents through its programs that enhance the international educational experiences for Kindergarten through 12 th grade students in public, private and home school classes throughout the South Plains of Texas and the eastern region of New Mexico.

The K-12 International Education Outreach’s mission is to ensure that students in Lubbock and the surrounding area have the opportunity to learn about the people and cultures of other countries. Our programs offer students and teachers a wide variety of programs which include: lectures about international topics and interests by TTU professors and other professionals; presentations from TTU International Student Organizations about their countries; and interdisciplinary programs that include the geography, history, art, music, culture and language of many countries from around the world; touring artists – storytellers, musicians, and dancers.

K-12 International Education Outreach has received a grant from the Helen Jones Foundation to purchase traveling trunks (cases) for teachers to check out for use in their classroom/school. When the trunks are completed with the addition of cultural artifacts, culture cards describing the artifacts and lesson plans about various countries, teachers will have a valuable resource that will aid them in teaching students about other cultures. The artifacts in these trunks will give the students a first hand glimpse of what makes each culture unique.

This is where we need your help! If you would like to contribute any items that represent your country to make these traveling trunks, we would really appreciate the help. If you are going home for a break from your studies and would like to get inexpensive items to add to these cultural trunks, please consider the following items:

 **You may know of other items that would represent your culture.

 Any donations of cultural items would be greatly appreciated.

If some items are too costly, but you think they would be beneficial to our program, and you would like to purchase them while you in your country, please email me BEFORE you make the purchase to see if we have the funds to pay you for the item/s when you return. You will need to get my authorization for the purchase before we can pay you. We would have to have an original receipt from the person or store where you bought the item/s in order for us to pay you back. To get this permission to purchase anything for us, please email me at dianne.crowley@ttu.edu to tell me the item you want to purchase for our program and the cost in US Dollars. I will email you back to let you know if we would be able to purchase the item/s.

Please come by our offices and classroom in the International Cultural Center to see how we use artifacts to teach about other countries. You may want to be a part of our teaching program to share with students from around the Lubbock about your country. We would like to meet you and learn more about your country.