An innovative project in the Program for Teaching East Asia brings culture and history to Colorado K-12 students

Colorado students don’t need to book a flight or get a passport to experience East Asia, because a program from the University of Colorado Boulder is bringing the region’s culture and history to them.

For the past two spring semesters, students participating in a CU Boulder outreach program to K-12 classrooms have been using a favorite childhood medium: picture books.

The program is coordinated by Lynn Kalinauskas, director for the Program for Teaching East Asia (TEA); Catherine Ishida, assistant director for Japan and Korea Projects; and Christy Go, the program’s graduate student assistant. They have varied their program to involve many East Asian countries, yet the central goal of their program has always been to develop students' cross-cultural understanding.

 

Lynn Kalinauskas (left), director for the Program for Teaching East Asia (TEA), and graduate student assistant Christy Go (right), along with colleague Catherine Ishida, assistant director for Japan and Korea Projects, coordinate a CU Boulder CU Boulder outreach program to K-12 classrooms that uses a favorite childhood medium: picture books.

Building a program

Three years ago, Kalinauskas, who is also the co-director of the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia, envisioned a new classroom outreach program that would bring East Asia into K-12 Colorado classrooms via picture books.

In spring 2024, with funding support from the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship and the Freeman Foundation, the program used books that taught elementary and middle school students about natural science. Books in the program, such as Moth and Wasp, Soil and Ocean and When the Sakura Bloom, allowed students to see agriculture and plant cycles within an East Asian context.

“Picture books offer a wealth of information. You can look at an image and learn so much,” remarks Kalinauskas. Go noted in an article about the first run of the program that teachers were receptive to the medium that offered a beautiful window into another culture. One educator who is grateful for what the program has done for their classroom said, “The carefully chosen picture book prompted interesting reflections and questions. The artifacts enhanced children's understanding and appreciation of the topic. I appreciated how the presenter drew connections between the children's lives and the experiences of the protagonist of the story.”

As the program progressed, Kalinauskas and her colleagues expanded its scope to cover a new topic. In spring 2025, students learned about the geography of East Asia, and the spring 2026 semester will center on learning about the contributions of famous Japanese people.

Pictures of East Asia

The process of choosing which picture books will be used involves a number of factors. At CU Boulder, the Program for Teaching East Asia is a coordinating site for the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia. This national organization administers the Freeman Book Awards that recognize quality books for children and young adults that contribute meaningfully to an understanding of East and Southeast Asia. Many of the books chosen for the project have won the Freeman award.

In the spring 2025 semester, the five books chosen were The Ocean Calls: A Haenyeo Mermaid Story by Tina Cho, Warrior Princess: The Story of Khutulun by Sally Deng, The Sound of Silence by Katrina Goldsaito, Rice by Hong Chen Xu and Mommy’s Hometown by Hope Lim.

A book such as Rice can be an important addition to the curriculum as it highlights agricultural practices in southern China, informing the reader about the impact geography has on people’s daily lives, their environment and cultural practices.

 

Lily Elliott (EBio, AsianSt'25) reads Rice to elementary school students. (Photo: Christy Go)

Students teaching students

Organizers note that the program is innovative not because it teaches students through picture books, but because it gives an internship opportunity to CU Boulder students of all disciplines and brings these new interns into Colorado classrooms.

Every fall, TEA staff begin recruiting for the spring outreach. Applicants have to submit short essays and participate in an interview. It is important that students selected be excited to teach about East Asia.

The process of working with the CU Boulder students is individualized and collaborative. Go says she works as a mentor for the students, adding that the staff work with student interns on multiple levels from how they should dress when presenting in classrooms, school procedures and what to expect when teaching children. Students work with the staff to identify the important characteristics of their assigned book and develop a lesson plan. Because students may visit different grade levels, they also learn to adapt their lessons to different age groups.

Teachers participating in the program often try to align the book selection with the material they’re already teaching. “We had kindergarten and second grade classrooms that were learning about the life cycles of plants, so they chose When the Sakura Bloom because they wanted to talk about the connection (between the East Asian representation and their science),” reflects Go. “Tracing the life cycle of the Sakura (cherry blossom) tree in the story not only reinforced student learning of the plant life cycle but also engaged students in discussing cultural events inspired by these natural processes through the presentation of hanami (cherry blossom–viewing picnic events) in the story.”

In the classrooms, CU student interns provide background information for students. The CU interns each read aloud while pointing out cultural representations, key characters and concepts, location, relationships between characters and relevant context related to the themes, science or geography. One CU student teaching The Ocean Calls introduced different sea life and later asked students while they were reading to point out the animals. This is followed by a lesson plan and an interactive activity. For one student teaching Sound of Silence, a book about a boy trying to find silence in the city of Tokyo, “our student found sound clips of different places in Tokyo and had students listen and guess where they were,” remembers Go. “Students loved it!” The presentations are like “a traveling show,” says Kalinauskas, who oversees each step of this process.

Beyond their involvement in coordinating with teachers, choosing books and mentoring student interns, staff take their commitment to the program one step further by driving student interns to schools all around Colorado.

More than a cup of noodles

In the first year, 64 classrooms participated; the following year, interns presented in 49 classrooms.  The classes are usually in the Denver-Boulder metro area but have reached as far as Greeley. While mainly aimed at elementary classrooms, program organizers have also brought their CU interns to middle schools and one high school classroom. Additionally, if a school is too far to be reached by car, like one school in Grand Junction, interns have done interactive Zoom presentations.

This program has been enriching for Colorado K-12 students while simultaneously being a great educational experience for the CU Boulder student interns. Kalinauskas and Go have found that through this program, many students have gained professional skills and experience that have expanded their career pathways. Two former graduate students in education are now teaching in local schools. Another student intern, who taught a book on Korea, was so inspired that she moved to Korea to teach English.

For Colorado teachers, the program doesn’t end when interns leave their classroom. Although the presentations cover only one book, each classroom receives a copy of every book in that semester’s program for students to read for years to come. Teachers also receive cultural information and teaching resources to engage students in learning about all the books in the program. TEA also hosts a fall in-person workshop for Colorado teachers focused on the same books. Kalinauskas and Go note that although they aim to expand their program to many new classrooms, some teachers love it so much they have participated in multiple semesters.

TEA is bringing its program into Colorado schools next spring. The focus for Spring 2026 will be on the biographies of famous Japanese people and Japanese culture. The program features the story of a young female artist in Japan during the Edo period, the first woman to summit Mount Everest and a story about how Momofuku Ando created one of the world’s most popular foods, instant ramen.

“The picture book Magic Ramen not only teaches us about how instant ramen was created but takes us back in time to Japan post-World War II, where a young man was trying to feed people in Osaka,” says Kalinauskas. “We don’t always think about that historical context when we are just having our cup of noodles.” 

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