MILWAUKEE (April 12, 2023) — Two prominent downtown venues will soon be filled with more than 2,000 students from 16 of the most diverse schools in the Milwaukee Public Schools system. The annual MPS World Fair provides a space for students in grades 4 to 8 to showcase what they’ve learned about the United Nations and its 193 member countries during the school year.
Student projects dig deep to explore the strengths and challenges of each nation and the role each country plays in its region or continent. The World Fair will include performances representing various cultures, including the Milwaukee School of Languages band and choir, the Milwaukee Academy of Chinese Languages Cultural Fashion Show, the dance team and drum line from Rufus King, and African dance from Milwaukee French Immersion School.
The 16 schools participating in the 2023 World Fair are part of MPS’s United Nations Schools of International Learning (UNSIL) program and have the highest concentrations of students with international roots, many of them refugees resettled in Wisconsin or part of immigrant families. Within the participating schools, 35 different languages are spoken by students and families.
WHERE: UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, 400 W Kilbourn Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53203
7-8 grade presentations will occur in the Miller High Life Theatre connected to the arena.
WHEN: Tuesday, April 18; 10 a.m. — 1 p.m.
“Programs like this provide opportunities for students to broaden their own perspectives of cultures around the world and share their own with fellow classmates,” says Tiffany Tardy, MPS Foundation Executive Director. “Perhaps more than any other, the annual MPS World Fair accurately displays the diversity of not only MPS, but the city as a whole.”
The World Fair is made possible by visionary local philanthropists: the Annette J. Roberts & Joan R. Robertson Fund for World Peace, World Law, and Peace Education. Through the MPS Foundation and the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, the trustees of this fund established the United Nations Schools of International Learning curriculum in MPS. The program began in 2016 in nine schools and is now implemented in 16 MPS schools.
“This was the dream of my mother, Joan Robertson, and at 107 years old, she’s thrilled that it continues on,” said Annette Robertson of Annette J. Roberts & Joan R. Robertson Fund for World Peace. “The real wonderful thing is that if you ask any student at the World Fair about their country or what they studied, they’re so excited and empowered. They see that these children, these people are like them; they just speak a different language and live in a different country.”
The United Nations Schools of International Learning (UNSIL) program has demonstrated its influence in readying MPS students for a competitive 21st-century global workforce. The UNSIL program combines academic skills like research, writing, and presenting with a real-world purpose such as debate, negotiation, and conflict resolution. These activities take place in a curriculum centered on world affairs, current events, multiculturalism, and cultural competencies, which help students develop empathy, tolerance, critical thinking, and problem-solving competencies necessary to succeed in any postsecondary environment and career.
