Seville Elementary School sixth-graders have learned that selling shoes can take time, teamwork and appeals to things that have nothing to do with feet, like the human desire to fit in with others. Students in Peg White’s sixth-grade class recently got a taste of real-world business and competition with a three-month, multimedia advertising project. Split into three groups, the students competed for a “contract” with an imaginary shoe company called Ultima. They came up with slogans, such as “Be the Ultimate with Ultima.” Students were responsible for developing TV and radio commercials, a billboard, and a magazine ad, which they presented last week to a panel of teachers and administrators. “They are working with each other and working out problems among themselves,” said White, who adapted an existing project by Interact to fit the school’s reading and language curriculum. Interact, a Fort Atkinson, Wis.-based company provides interactive learning tools and activities to educators. Students said they learned about teamwork while practicing writing, communication, art and math skills. “Everything we learn in school comes together when we work on our ads,” said Stephanie Guerriero, 12. Instead of keeping traditional grades, White assigned a dollar amount to every task and deducted $1,000 “dollars” if a student wasn’t cooperating. Students also drew “fate cards” that represented additional advertising assignments, natural disasters or an unexpected loss or gain in funds. “Sometimes you have good luck with this and sometimes you have bad luck,” said Jeri Boehm, 12. “That’s what happens in real life.” Daniella Gomes, 11, said that she notices things she didn’t before about the ads she sees every day. “A lot goes into each advertisement you see,” said Gomes. “In our ads, we sometimes did a lot of takes to get it just right.” Rabikar Chatterjee, professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, said projects like the one in White’s classroom help students with teamwork skills and encourage them to be more sophisticated consumers. “We live in a world where business and commerce has been steadily increasing. We live and breathe it,” Chatterjee said. “The earliest we can give our children the opportunity to look at how this works, the better. And there is no better way to learn than to get your hands dirty and do it.”

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