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March Madness More Than Fun And Games At Local School

UTICA (WWJ) – As March Madness begins, employers and teachers may worry about the decline in productivity amongst their employees and students.

In Macomb County's Dekeyser Elementar, 5th grade teacher Shari Ritz is using the NCAA Tournament as a learning experience.

Ritz' students are doing research projects in March on one of the colleges competing for the basketball championship.

According to Ritz, the students really enjoy the project and previous students often inquire about completing the project again.

Through the years, the project has grown from a poster to a full research project that includes a persuasive essay. "It's fun, the kids love it and they look forward to it," said Ritz.

"They do research where they find out about tuition, they find out about admissions, things about college. But the thing is it's really important that they start thinking now about where they really want to go, and what they want to do and how they can get into college," she said.

Ritz said that in the past, students have chosen to go to school at one of the colleges they researched as part of the March Madness project.

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