New London — It was always just soccer for Fabrizio Gonzalez, an eighth grader in New London, whose family members began playing in their native Honduras. It was just a game. It’s that way with kids. A game. With real-life romance, not real-life gravity.

And then came this school project.

“Balotelli got a banana thrown at him,” Gonzalez was saying last week.

He was talking about Mario Balotelli, the soccer player who grew up in Sicily, born to immigrants from Ghana, once the target of racism playing a game in Europe.

“I wanted to do this project on something I liked and there are things about soccer I never knew,” he said. “I learned there are people around the world who discriminate and don’t do the right thing.”

This was Gonzalez’s activism project. He picked racism. Scores and scores of other classmates, who proudly filled the College Center at Crozier-Williams last week at Connecticut College, chose other issues like equality, sexism and police brutality.

Hardly a prouder moment this year in the New London school system. Kids getting involved and showing off their work on a college campus to an impressive number of local leaders who came in support.

Eighth graders from the Language-Culture-Leadership pathway, project coordinator and teacher Logan Tonucci said, had two months to pick a topic, write a thesis statement and do the research necessary. Their work, in the form of displays all over Crozier-Williams, was showcased under the interested eyes of Mayor Passero, police captains Todd Bergeson and Brian Wright and a number of other city leaders.

The looks of hope and wonder on the kids’ faces told the story better than any words could.

Somebody was listening.

It wasn’t always like this, especially on the sports page, where social activism never got reported right there with the final score. But if nothing else, we are undergoing an awakening across all creeds and cultures, where forums, athletic and otherwise, become platforms. And there’s nothing more refreshing in our educational system than to see student awareness morphing into student involvement.

“These are topics in the news every day,” Tonucci said. “They’re brought up in the newspapers and on social media. Topics that effect people of color. Different religions. All of us, every day. Students are passionate about it. Hopefully, that helps them make a difference. This is not ‘how fast can this flower sprout in this amount of sunlight?’ This is not a science project. This is activism and about making a difference.”

Several kids in the room last week said they were inspired by Colin Kaepernick, the former quarterback of the 49ers, who created a national discussion almost two years ago now by kneeling for the national anthem. Some mentioned NBA and WNBA players who have stood united before games in protest of various issues.

The kids understand many of the topics are controversial. That “activism” carries a negative connotation for those not interested in it.

But then, there are the words in “The Lorax” from sagely Dr. Seuss: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

And so there was Crismerlin Jimenez’s display about sexual harassment/abuse, complete with a photo of Harvey Weinstein, who had been arrested earlier that day. There was Fatima Robinson’s display about the Happy Hippie Foundation, founded by Miley Cyrus in 2014, to help youth homelessness, the LGBTQ community and other vulnerable populations.

“We try to get people to talk about contemporary issues. Get people to think about activism,” said Aileen Novick, program manager for Hempsted Houses, whose partnership with the middle school and subsequent grant enabled this project to happen. “We want them to look at people from the past and the things they tried to do to change things. And what we can do now?

“When we have the public come through, we find adults are slow to respond talking about contemporary issues. A lot of people didn’t grow up talking about difficult issues. But in school, kids are more engaged and more willing to talk. Last year, I took some of these projects the kids did and put them in the (Hempsted) house just to help spark the conversation among the adults.”

This was very much real-world education here in the roaring 2000s. Not exactly the classroom with readin, writin and rithmetic. This was kids conversing with adults about important things in a public setting. Hate Colin Kaepernick, LeBron and all the other celebrities as much as you want. But they’re getting the kids talking. That’s a good start.

“It was important for me to be there to support the kids,” Bergeson said. “We have fostered relationships with them for a while now. We want to maintain that.”

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro