Tthe Sprint Nextel campus in Overland Park is shown in this 2007 file photo. Students in a marketing class at Bonner Springs High School were given Sprint phones for several weeks and wrote reports on their usage of different applications such as texting and Internet programs.

Bonner Springs ? Students from Bonner Springs High School have paired up with one of the largest corporations in the Kansas City area for a special project.

Through a connection with a teacher at the high school, members of a BSHS marketing class joined Sprint in a research and data collection project.

“It was really an amazing experience,” said marketing teacher Adrianne Law. “It got (the students) to realize that there is so much more involved in the business world.”

At the beginning of the project, members of the Sprint Mobile Internet Team spoke to the students about their various positions with the company. Law said that this was to show the students that several types of jobs exist in the business world and to introduce them to what some of those jobs may be.

All the jobs were marketing-related in keeping with the theme of the class, but Law said she started to see the students’ minds widen to the possibilities in their futures.

For the next part of the project, the students were divided into groups of three, and each group was given a cell phone with unlimited calling, texting, downloading and Internet. For a week at a time, the students took turns using the phones and were asked to collect information about that usage.

Law said students recorded how much they used the phone and what they used it for, as well as their likes and dislikes. With their data collected, the study groups then got to the task of designing PowerPoint presentations to give to Sprint employees about their findings.

“It was such a real-world experience,” Law said. “It brought exactly what we learned in the classroom into life and showed them the kind of work that is expected of people in the business world.”

Earlier this month, the class of about 30 students traveled to the Sprint headquarters in Overland Park and toured the facility. They also gave their presentations about their data, which Law said her Sprint contacts were impressed by.

“They did so well,” she said. “They knew they wanted to succeed, and they worked so hard on their presentations. It put their future plans in action, including beyond college.”

Law said her students responded well to the project and loved the opportunity to work with a large company like Sprint.

Law said she hopes to continue her students’ partnership with Sprint.

“This project opened their eyes that business has so much to offer,” Law said. “It taught them that there is so much out there they can do with a business degree.”