Hello, Taft Middle School!

I’m very excited to be saying hello to the 7th Grade Gold Team from Taft Middle School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa! I’m “Aunty Carolyn” to my students here in Nigeria (they address all their teachers either using “Aunty” or “Uncle” and their first name) and I’m from Iowa, but I’m here in Jalingo teaching science for a year. My JS3 (like 9th grade) Integrated Science students at JSS are looking forward to getting to know things about your school, Iowa and the United States.

These students live in Jalingo which is the capital of Taraba State in Nigeria. Since Jalingo is located near the equator, it’s pretty hot here most of the time. The weather now is changing from rainy season to dry season with Harmattan to be coming during November and December, which is their “winter”. This time will be cool at night and very hot, dry, windy and dusty during the day.

In science, they just got done learning about Living Things in their Environment including the five sense systems and they are now learning about chemistry, which is my personal favorite! They just learned a little chant about the 3 parts of the atom and are now practically chemistry experts! The students also take classes about Hausa, which is their native language, math, English, home economics, social studies, physical education (they love it here, too!) and art. Since they live here at school, they eat all of their meals here, play games, do chores, sing songs, and study all here on campus. They love to play football (soccer), volleyball and Badminton during games time and hang out with their friends. They don’t have any internet access at school, so communication will have to go through me, but you can email me cartercarolyn@hotmail.com if you would like to send the students in JS3 a message.

Thank you so much for your efforts to help us out with some supplies! We really appreciate it and are excited to get to know you! Please let me know if you have any specific questions you would like the students to answer.