Elementary teachers face the challenging task of meeting state curriculum standards while at the same time attempting to expand ideas that are inclusive of the wider world. True inquiry is "experienced when those involved [do] not know the answers that lay at the end of their exploration". Guiding children into true inquiry is difficult if the teacher has never experienced this process of learning. The use of inquiry learning for the project described in this article provided an effective way for pre-service teachers to explore the connectedness of state standards and world-mindedness while also exploring the potential for inquiry learning in their future classrooms. During these pre-service teachers' investigations, state standards came to life through the lens of another world location.