An Oklahoma teacher is seeking help from teachers in Jim Thorpe to compete in the Kids Creating Community Content contest.

"This year, one of our chosen topics is Oklahoma Native American Jim Thorpe," said Tammy Parks, a multimedia/broadcast journalism teacher at Howe Public School in Howe, Oklahoma. "We are looking for collaborators specifically from Lawrence, Kansas; Carlisle, Pennsylvania; and Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania."For the past three years, my students have created virtual field trips as part of the Kids Creating Community Content Contest sponsored by the Center for Interactive Learning," she said. Her school received third and fourth places in 2009, and first and second places in 2010."This year, one of our chosen topics is Oklahoma Native American Jim Thorpe," Parks continued. "We are looking for collaborators specifically from Lawrence, KS, Carlisle, PA, and/or Jim Thorpe, PA, but are open to any passionate teacher/classroom. We would like to collaborate on research, project development, and/or invite an audience to "take" our student-created virtual field trips."Howe Public School is a small school in Southeastern Oklahoma. The school offers grades pre-K through 12 and has 475 students. It serves a relatively poor community, with 80 percent of the children receiving free and reduced cost lunches. It is geographically isolated, and has an ethnic mix of 30 percent Native American with the balance being mostly European American.Parks teaches broadcast, web and print journalism and virtual field trip creation. "We are expanding our one-to-one laptop initiative where every student has a laptop in grade pre-K through 12," she noted. "We're focused at looking at critical thinking skills, twenty-first century skills, and giving students a more engaging way to learn in our classrooms."The Howe Public School is initiating project-based learning. Their teaching staff completed two days of training from the Buck Institute for Education, a company that Parks said, "They know how to do it right."Parks explained that project-based learning has been around since the 1930s. "It is a good way to bring authentic learning experiences to our students and give them a reason to want to know about algebra or history. It makes a real world connection to our content. Most projects last from two to nine weeks, although they can be long term.""All summer, I wanted to do a project on Jim Thorpe. I thought it would be a virtual field trip, a bio about his life, and to share a story," Parks said. "With the lawsuit between people in the states of Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, it's opened up a new realm of possibilities for this project."Parks has named the project "Jim Thorpe - the World's Greatest Athlete." "With project-based learning, you have an open-ended question that sparks the interest of students. Our driving question is, "Why would people from two states fight over a dead body?"Parks would like to focus on the unfolding dilemma. "We would like to understand why the families don't see eye-to-eye," she said regarding the conflict between the children of Jim Thorpe's first wife-who wanted his remains to stay in the Borough of Jim Thorpe, and the children of Jim Thorpe's second wife, who are behind a lawsuit to relocate his remains to Oklahoma.Tom Lesisko, principal of Jim Thorpe High School said that he plans to contact Parks, and "I would like to see some type of cooperative project between our students."The project will be created in the fall and may be followed at:

jimthorpe.wikispaces.com. Parks may be contacted at:

tammygparks@mac.com.