By David Karas | Correspondent

How can a social studies project be used to evangelize to the peers of middle-school students?

Maureen Madden, who teaches fourth and fifth grad social studies classes in St. Veronica School, Howell, has found a way to transform lessons about New Jersey and the other 49 states into a means for her students to share their faith.

After her class received a letter from a Catholic school in Connecticut, Madden came up with the idea of challenging her students to send letters to Catholic schools in all 50 states.

“I think from a social studies standpoint, it definitely is the outreach to all 50 states,” said Madden, adding that the experience allows her students and classes to learn about each of the states they are writing to. The project also connects to the existing curricula for the two grades, as fourth graders are studying New Jersey and fifth graders are studying the 50 states.

But that isn’t the project’s only focus. Each letter that students write includes three parts: something about St. Veronica school, something that makes their school community Catholic, and something about the state of New Jersey. The second component, she said, is a great way to incorporate evangelization into a class project.

“From the faith standpoint, it’s an opportunity to share what we do and find out what other people do to celebrate Advent, Lent (and) the other [liturgical] seasons,” she said.

Madden also challenged her students to do their own research to find schools to write to. She randomly assigned each pupil a state, and asked them to visit the website of the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA) at home with their parents to search for a school to mail their letter to.

Madden found that this assignment drew out some additional connections with the students. Some of her students picked the school to write to based upon its name, drawing connections to saints they know, or the names of family members. The class is hoping for a lot of responses from the letter campaign, and that the first – from South Dakota – has already made its way to the Howell campus.

“When she talked about her state and area, (the girl) said that (they) have the corn palace,” she said. “We all laughed.” The class learned that the corn palace is a large building with walls covered in murals created entirely with corn.

Fourth-grader Gia Landino, 9, the recipient of the first returned letter, wrote to St. John Paul II School in South Dakota – a school she chose because of her knowledge of its namesake. She had no trouble identifying ways that St. Veronica School celebrates its faith to share with her peers.

“At St. Veronica School, you can tell we are Catholic,” she said. “There is a beautiful picture of St. Veronica as you walk in the front door.  We have a Crucifix in every room.  We have religion class every day and we pray several times each day.”

Meanwhile, fellow fifth-grader Isabella Landino, 10, selected St. Thomas the Apostle School in Phoenix, Ariz., because it bears the name of her great grandfather. “I shared with the students of St. Thomas School that we in St. Veronica have Living Stations of the Cross every year during Holy Week.”

Madden is considering ways to expand the project – potentially by sending sets of rosaries to the classes that interact with her students.

“It does offer the opportunity to share faith,” she said. “(And) it is a form of evangelization, too.”