Students at Moravia will become connected to the people of Costa Rica through their visual art, their storytelling, their woodworking and their economic practices next year.

Fifth-grade students will learn first-hand how economically sustainable collectives work in this tiny Central American country. They will become familiar with how these collectives create mutually beneficial relationships between producers and consumers. Our fifth graders will develop a keen awareness of how their spending impacts the global economy. At the end of the school year, a festival will celebrate Costa Rican arts, food and the rich diversity of plants and animals that live in the Costa Rican rainforests.

Millard Fillmore's fifth graders will work with Cornell's Lab of Ornithology to learn about Costa Rica's astonishing array of opportunities to appreciate biodiversity. It is estimated that 25 percent of Costa Rica has been set aside as preserves. Eco tourism provides millions of dollars of income to this country. Hundreds of species of birds, from hummingbirds to resplendent quetzals, reside in the protected forests of Costa Rica, beckoning avid birders from all over the world. Our students will learn about their unique characteristics and habitats, their status on endangered lists and how Costa Rica protects their fragile existence while providing for the livelihood of the people.

Do you wonder how we plan to gather such a wealth of information? We're off to Costa Rica at the end of June. My husband, our good friend and internationally acclaimed teaching theater artist, Holly Adams, and I will spend a day with the manager of the Cerro Alto coffee farm, part of La Union collective, which supplies coffee for Gimme! Coffee, Inc of Ithaca. We have made an appointment to talk with the manager of a butterfly collective, Spirogyra, where women work together to breed and collect butterflies. This business supports many families, while providing collectors from around the world with unusual butterflies and moths. We will spend time in the rainforests of Monteverde, northwest of San Jose learning and gathering information about the flora and fauna of this lush tropical paradise. A cheese collective operates in Monteverde and we plan to visit this as well. Arenal Volcano has been erupting in a steady stream of lava for more than 15 years. We will be right there to gather information for our project. “Tough job, but somebody has to do it!”

A small Costa Rican school northeast of San Jose will be the recipient of central New York generosity. Millard Fillmore Elementary School's Student Council is sending boxes of pencils and sharpeners to the impoverished school. Teachers are sending books for students as they learn to speak English. The Ithaca Chamber of Commerce is donating hundreds of pens. Cornell's Latin American Studies outreach program is contributing new colored markers to help. We hope to establish a “sister school” relationship with this school, allowing our students to truly connect with the Costa Rican students through shared letters and artwork.

A young woman from Moravia is studying architecture at the University of Buffalo. She is in Costa Rica now, working as part of a college student team to solve various infrastructure issues and civil engineering problems in Monteverde. She lives with a family and walks to her work each day, looking beyond the mountains to a bay that leads to the Pacific Ocean. We hope to set up a rendezvous, thousands of miles from Moravia. We realize that she is setting an example for our young students.

While in Costa Rica, we will also visit an area famous for local craftspeople. My husband is a cabinetmaker and hopes to learn about the various tropical hardwoods. I plan to introduce our fifth-grade students to some of the crafts, but also the unique characteristics of trees that grow in this remarkable climate.

Holly and I have been applying for grant funding to help pay for this project. First Niagara Bank has generously offered to help us and we hope to secure some help from Target and Wal-Mart. The funds will be used primarily for Holly's teaching time with us and for the supplies for our festival.

Millard Fillmore's fifth-grade teachers are eager to join Holly and I on our Costa Rican learning adventure. Our role as global citizens will come alive through visual and theater arts. Our students will appreciate the global impact of their dollars spent in particular ways. The rainforest and its extraordinary biodiversity will be opened for our whole school community through this project.

Pat Kinney is an art teacher at Millard Fillmore Elementary School in Moravia.