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Asia Day Brings K-12 Students and Teachers to Penn

On Friday February 24 the Middle East Center in partnership with the South Asia Center and Penn Museum had the pleasure to host approximately one hundred forty K-12 students and their teachers at Penn Museum for “Asia Day: Understanding Asia through the lens of Media”. The students from six different high schools from the greater Philadelphia area (Penn-Crest High School, Academy at Palumbo, Central High School, Academy of Notre Dame de Namur, Bodine High School, and Master Charter Thomas) were present during Asia Day. Asia Day started out with a lecture delivered by Dr. Rahul Mukherjee entitled “Reading Between the Lines of Popular Media: A South Asian Perspective”. Following this lecture, the students had opportunities to study ancient forms of mass communication during a museum tour. They also took part in international classroom sessions. At noon staff members from the Middle East Center and the South Asia Center accompanied students to Penn’s campus where a Middle Eastern and Asian inspired lunch was being served in the Arch building. The students and the teachers had the opportunity to listen to a lecture entitled “Islam and the Middle East: How the News Media Shapes perception” by PhD student Mohammed Salih. Mohammed previously worked as a journalist covering the Middle East. There was also a Sufi performance given by Juan Castrillon, a PhD student in ethnomusicology at Penn.