cultural exchanges
Global Learning Experiences Take Students to New Heights: Collaborating with Students in Other Countries On The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals
It is often said that teachers create magic in their classroom. Kathryn Crawen at Ashford School in Venon, CT took creating magic to a global classroom with the project, Global Learning Experiences Take Students to New Heights.
They are developing an exciting and immersive cultural exchange for students from Kindergarten to 8th grade using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a launching point for project based learning and collaboration with students in other countries (both in person and virtual). Students in K-8th grade will be immersed in school-wide projects that connect them with their global peers, working to engineer solutions the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This project is the first of its kind to utilize these parameters and tools laid out by the United Nations.
What is the project and their goals?
The goal of the project was to create global competency opportunities through international student-led collaborations focusing on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Students met the following criteria defined by the Asia Society:
- Recognize perspectives from around the globe
- Communicate ideas to diverse populations
- Take action to design innovation solutions to global problems
- Investigate the world
Prior to their collaboration, 7th and 8th grade students completed a reflection rubric on their global leadership skills. The rubric included questions and scales for the four criteria from the Asia Society (above). The same students completed the survey at the mid year point and on average they moved 1.8 levels on the global leadership rubric.
The students had the opportunity to practice recognizing perspectives from around the globe by using Skype with German students on topics such as climate change, gender equality, and sustainable economics. They communicated ideas through presentations both in Germany and within the local community. They took action through creating an interactive GIS map of indicators of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. And, most importantly they had the opportunity to investigate the world through the district’s first exchange program.
What did they accomplish?
Students created the first part of a StoryMap on ArcGIS. Each student generated a question based on a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal. As a whole school, they collaborated with their German friends to discuss the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and how to meet them. Most of these collaborations were done via Skype, though they had substantial collaboration while in Germany as well. Kathryn Craven states, “It was fun to watch them all grow while working to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.”
How has this project affected the learning of students and/or teachers?
Katheryn Craven and her colleagues were thrilled and honored by how involved their whole district got in the Global Learning initiative. In addition to making progress towards the goals listed above, their major achievements for this year were:
First International Exchange for Ashford School:
They participated in the first international exchange ever for their district. Most of their students had never been out of the country or on a plane before and grew enormously while in Germany. This exchange was life-changing for the core group of 20 students, and also reached every part of their school through virtual collaboration and exchanging ideas and solutions back and forth. See students working on their exchange here: http://ashfordabroad.weebly.com/
First District Wide Teacher Exchange in the state of Connecticut:
While they were in Germany collaborating with other schools, they realized that teachers could also benefit from teaching abroad. They met with administrators at the German partner school and then in their home district, and came up with an idea for a reciprocal exchange in which teachers
switched classes for three weeks. Since their district is so enthusiastic about the partnership, it allowed them to use district funding for this – a sign that the relationship is going to continue for a long time!
Schoolwide Global Learning Initiative:
All students have engaged in Skype sessions with partner classes where they talk about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In addition, they were accepted as one of four Empathy Project schools in the United States. This means that each student in the school in grades 1-6 will have a virtual partner school in a different country.
Collaboration on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:
Their collaboration focused primarily on students developing solutions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Students have worked on solutions to goals like UNSDG-13 (Climate Change) by holding a maker drive.
What challenges did they experience and how they are addressing the challenges to improve the project?
One challenge that they faced with getting the program up and running was that some people in small towns can feel intimidated to get involved with international exchanges. In fact, prior to the proposal, their school had never had an international exchange before, and many students had never even spoken to someone from a different country. However, the support and the enthusiasm about global learning garnered by this grant helped them to overcome these problems. They used to have children who struggled to converse with anyone with an accent. But through these in-person and virtual exchanges, their students’ natural curiosity helped them overcome these challenges as they learned that people in other parts of the world have amazing stories to tell. Currently, each classroom has a virtual partnership, and they were blown away by the difference in their students when it came to talking with people from around the world. To continue their growth in this area, they would like to begin collaborations with non-Western countries so students can continue to gain different perspectives from around the world.
Further reading
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Sustainable Education Through International Understanding
“When one country has an issue, it becomes the whole world’s issue. We as a planet have to try and make a change, because there is only one earth, which happens to be our only home… The small things affect the most, so definitely, I will do small things to save and conserve our planet.”
That’s a quote from one of the students, in the ESD: Sustainable Education Through International Understanding program, after collaborating internationally with Japanese students. It exemplified what the educators at Lakeridge Jr. High School were setting out to accomplish with this program.
Students Learn About Sustainable Education and How It Impacts the World
In an increasingly interconnected and globalized world the butterfly effect takes on new meaning. Emission problems in one country don’t just affect them; they affect all the surrounding countries and some that are not so close. As the rainforest is depleted we lose a global source of oxygen. When radiation leaks into the ocean, everything from algae to people are affected. Creating an awareness of global issues and sustainability is a necessary part of surviving in the modern world.
As Americans we often find ourselves a bit self-centered when it comes to world issues, but now that we can communicate across oceans with the click of a button, that distance has shrunk immeasurably and we can no longer afford to only think of ourselves.
How are 9th grade students in Orem, Utah learning about global issues through sustainability?
According to the initial proposal, submitted by Merida Davis’ team at Lakeridge Jr. High School, “Our goals are to stimulate and facilitate responsible sustainability awareness and interaction at the individual, community and global scales.” Their goal was to be realized by creating cross-curricular partnerships between the science department and the other subject instructors, initially in a professional development workshop. By creating this cross pollination of subjects teachers learned to “seamlessly incorporate sustainability into their subjects… and […] new perspectives on teaching their own subject area.” After this initial work with the educators was completed, the project moved on to address the students directly.
To become well versed in sustainability, students participated in sustainability-based community service projects. Part of those projects were about creating a documentary movie to highlight local issues, such as pollution, agriculture, climate change, resource management and depletion. Along with this, they also collaborated with Japanese students, giving them a perspective on this subject that they wouldn’t get otherwise.
WATCH: ESD Student Videos at VPD Awards
This project includes plans to offer a Sustainability Fair where students will celebrate their work by sharing their service and other sustainability-based projects. The Fair will culminate with a student film festival showcasing their work from throughout the school year.
Is this project something other teachers can replicate?
While now the primary benefits go to those students and educators directly involved with the program, it is the hope with future funding that they will be able to create online archives of lessons, produced videos, and other student work to serve as an outline for educators to adapt the program to their own schools needs.
Though the bulk of the cost goes into covering the teachers training, the best part about this model is once that initial hurdle is cleared it becomes increasingly easier year after year to teach this program.
How has the project evolved?
Through the lessons learned the projects accomplished in the last year, the educators have a better grasp on how to replicate the program in other classrooms more efficiently. Being able to replicate the program will enable them to broaden their scope in the coming year.
Through the grant they’ve been also able to fund Pen Pal letters to Toyoda Jr. High School in Japan. The exchange went beyond traditional pen pal relationships in that they were also able to chat electronically with students in Japan and Pakistan. A few students started learning basic Korean which resulted in a field trip to a Korean restaurant for many of the students first encounter with that culture’s cuisine. As a result of these opportunities, exchanges have also begun over Skype with students in Korea.
All of these things are creating students with a wider worldview and a greater connection to a global society. Through building relationships between teachers, offering meaningful exchange opportunities to students and by taking time to integrate curriculum, the ESD team has made sustainability education a reality for their students.
Learn more
- Sustainable Education – putting relationship back into education
- Education for Sustainable Development, UNESCO
- The Journal for Sustainability Education
- Sustainable Schools Project
McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation 