What began as a simple classroom project peaked this week with a whole day's activities dedicated to learning about another country in a school.

Wednesday became Egyptian Day for Elliot Primary School students in James Conyers' Primary Six class as they spent the whole day dressed as Egyptians and learning about the North African nation's culture.

"We didn't realise we were sitting on something this big,'' said Mr. Conyers.

The students first became interested in Egypt after learning of the crash of Egypt Air Flight 990 in which 217 people were killed.

They wanted to write letters to the grieving families, but their teachers said before they did that they needed to know something about the people they were writing.

And it was left up to the students to decide what they wanted to learn about Egypt with Mr. Conyers showing them how to find out what they needed to know.

"The students were allowed to move through exploratory activities,'' said Education Officer for Enrichment Juliette Steede-Harris.

The enrichment scheme enables teachers to teach the same topics to students with different learning abilities by having their pupils use different activities.

Some students might use the Internet to research the subject while others would build and use learning puzzles and games.

With Egypt Day, the idea was to immerse all the students in what the country had to offer.

"The idea isn't to have students just doing (these projects). It has to apply to the real world,'' Mrs. Steede-Harris said.

"Students provide how far it goes, teachers provide the support.'' In this case, she said, "if specific skills were needed, (Mr. Conyers) provided the skills''.

Students built models, made learning games and researched the Egyptian culture, language and food.

The whole class helped make a mummy which was stuffed with newspaper and wrapped in brown paper.

They also made a traditional Egyptian dish using a recipe they found on the Internet and dressed up in Egyptian robes and necklaces made of paper plates.

The students also had their chance to write letters to the families of passengers lost on the Egypt Air flight.

These will be sent to the Egyptian Embassy in Washington and forwarded on from there.

"This could turn into so much more,'' Mrs. Steede-Harris said. "The students could continue to write to the families. They could one day go and visit.''