With the click of a button, they were transported to Spain.

More than 30 students - drawn from two classes, business management and fourth-year Spanish - are participating in a curriculum that promotes global education at a time when the global economy is all the buzz.

They are tapping a curriculum offered by Junior Achievement International Inc. to launch an import-export business. And via Webcam recently, they met face to face with their partners from the Galicia region of Spain.

"We're here in high school, and we're getting the opportunity most people go to school for years to have," Kohle Hansen, 17, said of his plunge into international business. "It's a big deal."

Hansen, a senior, is the director of production for Murray Galicia Incorporated, or MGI, featuring a logo and all. The joint venture allows students to take on real-world positions and apply what they are learning from teachers and special speakers arranged by Junior Achievement.

The business-management class oversees the nuts and bolts of starting and running the company, while the Spanish students serve as cultural experts and translators. Their counterparts in Spain, conversely, put into practice their business and English skills.

Spanish-American exchange: The cross-Atlantic partners came together recently with a two-pronged agenda - to introduce themselves and to pitch products. In addition to offering up their names and hobbies, the students exchanged wisecracks and goofy smiles for the camera.

"How much is the boy?" yelled a Spanish student, as Nick Justet, Murray's 17-year-old marketing director, modeled a black knit cap sporting Murray High's orange Spartans logo.

The goal is to exchange products unique to students' respective places of origin. The Murray students gave their colleagues in Vago, Spain, a glimpse of American Indian jewelry, trendy charm bracelets and a demo of the all-American foot-bag game, Hacky Sack. In return, they got a look at Celtic-inspired pendants, rings and earrings - all special to the Galicia region.

The idea of partnering students abroad was the brainchild of Baldomero Lago, an assistant professor at Brigham Young University and Utah's honorary consul of Spain. As a high school Spanish teacher in the 1990s at Bingham High in South Jordan, the native Spaniard became bored with traditional vocabulary lists and grammar drills.

"I'm always an explorer to find new ways to teach," he said.

Lago's search for creative ways to integrate the language took him from history classrooms, where he shared Spanish culture, to home economics, where he introduced Spanish cuisine, and eventually to the business arena. He proposed a business-exchange program to education leaders in Spain. Within 48 hours of electronically sending out his proposal, a superintendent in Galicia responded.

Thus was born the Galicia Utah Globe Project in 1997. With help from Junior Achievement, Lago found the model and curriculum to help make his dream a reality.

The JA curriculum - GLOBE, or Global Learning of the Business Enterprise - is one of nearly 20 curricula offered by the nonprofit economic-education organization. Though JA programs are being used in 2,200 Utah classrooms - targeting students from kindergarten through high school - Murray High students are the only ones currently engaged in the international business program.

"Our luxury is that Baldomero [Lago] does it all," said Philip Cofield, president and CEO of JA's Utah office. "He has the class, he has the commitment from Spain, and we know our kids are going to get an incredible education as a result."

So it was no surprise that when Lago, now 40, went back to school in 1999 to get his doctorate, the program fizzled out.

A popular idea reborn: Five years later, however, he's back at it, and he has found willing partners in the Murray High teachers.

"I was kind of nervous at first," said Nicole Blanco, a first-year business management teacher at the school. "But I saw the kids' excitement, and they got me turned on to the idea."

Although students are launching an actual company, complete with stock options - to purchase products to send abroad and to keep participants personally invested in their work - the focus is more on real-world experience and confidence-building, and less on profit-making.

Virginia Smith, Murray's Spanish teacher, devised a new fourth-year course emphasizing business vocabulary.

"I was going to take AP [Spanish], but I decided to take this class because it seemed more interesting," 17-year-old Shantelle Butterfield said.

Having met their counterparts 5,000 miles away, Murray's students now will hone in on market research to see which Spanish products will sell in their school and, potentially, area malls.

MGI's president, 16-year-old Frank Wulle, walked out of the video conference empowered by the meeting.

"I've always wanted to run my own company," he said. "And the experience, working with others, has opened my eyes to what it entails."

jravitz@sltrib.com