Wantage - Wantage Elementary School World Languages teacher Melody Usher has been named this year’s Governor’s Teacher of the Year. Usher has spent the past six of her eleven years as an educator teaching the language and culture of the Hispanic world to the children of Wantage School, using many interdisciplinary learning activities to accomplish her goals. Among these is a social studies lesson devised for third graders in which children create their own passports, complete with pictures, and stamp it each time they learn about a new Hispanic country. Children gain an understanding of the number and variety of countries and customs as well as develop a respect for cultural diversity. Fourth graders are taught about the ancient Mayan civilization and the various traditions surrounding it. Fifth grade students are encouraged to do projects centered around their own lives, making personal connections to themselves through the Spanish language. For the past two years,Usher has conducted a school-wide project in conjunction with a nationwide effort that teaches the life cycle of monarch butterflies and traces their migration route to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The students watch as the real caterpillars eat and grow, then change into chrysalides. After the butterflies emerge, a mass release takes place on the playground for all three grades to view. Students create their own paper butterflies that are mailed to school children in Mexico to spend the winter there, and then they are sent back the following spring to students in the United States.