Schmitz Park Elementary School went global Friday, Feb. 26, when it hosted 30 international University of Washington students as part of the grade school’s “Passport” program. The college students represented FIUTS, or the Foundation for International Understanding Through Students. Most paired up in classrooms to share their cultures with kids from K-5.

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“We are a small non-profit with a mission to connect students both international and domestic to the wider Puget Sound community,” said Era Schrepfer, executive director of the foundation who grew up in White Center. “This is part of our education outreach program.”

Participants were from countries including Belarus, Montenegro, Sweden, China, South Korea, India and others.

Schmitz Park music teacher Liz Dunn led 30 elementary school kids in a drum circle to warm up the crowd as the rest of the kids and teachers poured into the gymnasium to be “briefed” by principal Gerrit Kischner about the international program.

In the drum circle, boys and girls sat on opposite sides as they banged their “djembe” drums, traditional instruments from Guinea, Africa, to two traditional songs from that country.

“The second song is kind of a flirtation,” Dunn said. “That’s why the boys and girls are sitting apart. In Guinea the boys from one village would be asking girls visiting from other villages their names, and the girls would then talk to the boys.”

Following the assembly, the grade schoolers marched back into classrooms with the international students ready.

“New Zealand has four million people and forty million sheep,” Trond Nilsen told second graders armed with globes and New Zealand maps at every table. Nilsen earned his Masters degree at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch and is working on his PhD at the UW.

He projected a photo of a bungee jumper leaping off a high platform and falling into a river far below.

“This is very popular in New Zealand but I would never try it,” he said.

Manisha Thuparani of India showed the kids a traditional hand dance while explaining that India’s 28 states are diverse with different languages and dance customs.

Andreas Fahlvik Svensson, from Sweden, wore yellow and blue pants, a sweater, and scarf to celebrate his country’s national colors.

“I taught my class about the the Swedish royal family, our famous brands, like Ikea, the nature we have, and how to count in Swedish from one to 10count 1 to 10,” he said. He will return to Chalmers University of Technology in his hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Heba Al Mohsin and Zainab Al Mubarak are from Qatif on Saudi Arabia’s eastern coast. They showed their class PowerPoint images of modern glass highrises in Riyad, the nation’s capital.

Al Mohsin said she will major in engineering and material science when she returns to her university in Qatif. Al Mubarak will major in nutrition there.

“I like the weather in Seattle,” Al Mohsin enthused after the class.

“This weather is rare in our country,” added Al Mubarak.

“We have a lot of sun there, so we enjoy it when there is no sun here,” Al Mohsin said.