Bé&erTHURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2010 | ROP | POST-TRIB.COM ian A Jackson Township Elementary School second-grader a: organize the thousands of canned foods donated by students at the Porter Co sone a junty school. MICHAEL MCARDLE/POST-TRIBUNE Elementary students score big in annual ‘Souperbowl’ BY CHARLES M. BARTHOLOMEW Post-Tribune correspondent shes JACKSON TOWNSHIP — Super Bowl Sun- day might be the biggest sports event of the year to many people. ‘To the 393 students at Jackson Township Ele- mentary School, the game is an opportunity for community service, as well as a chance to dis- play some school spirit. And for four classes of second-graders, it’s also a math lesion. At 9 a.m. sharp Tuesday, the hallway filled with the rattle of carts as they wheeled the morn- ing’s donations of cans of soup for local food pantries to the cafeteria for counting and sort- ing. “It’s our ‘Souperbow!’,” teacher Alice Estill said. “The school did a food drive before Christ- mas and then the pantries told us they needed more soup. The second-graders took it up as their class project.” Monday was the day to wear Trojan maroon and gold, and on Tuesday, youngsters and teacher dressed in their favorite college team colors. “Think of all the people who are getting nutritious dinner or lunch because of you. You’r doing an awesome job today,” teacher Kath Erdelac told the students as they readied thei tally sheets to count the cans of vegetable, crear of mushroom and tomato soups along with pack ages of Ramen noodles. Asecond count and sort would be done in th afternoon. Teacher Linda Eleftheri said the day’s donz tions would be delivered to the Westcheste Neighbors Food Pantry in Porter and the Hil top Food Pantry in Valparaiso, where 849 can from the Monday collections had been taken. “This ties in with our math unit on data col lection. They'll do charts and graphs, too,” Elef heri said. ‘The football theme continues this week wit other activities. On Monday, the class that has turned in th most soup cans will be announced. ‘The winners will spend two hours at Inman’ with bowling and’suoes provided.