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International Project Based Learning (PBL) Opportunities
International Project Based Learning (PBL) Opportunities
Shared Studios Portals are housed mostly in shipping containers that have been repurposed and equipped to hold video technology that connects locals to people in other parts of the world. My students were fortunate to be able to visit a portal in November 2017 at the Harvard Divinity School. Upon entering the portal, they were "face to face" with refugees either in Iraq, Jordan, Gaza, and Germany. Students were able to build off of our unit on wars in the Middle East and the resulting refugee crisis by talking with people who had lived these experiences. Participants talked about topics related to these wars, but most often were interested in learning more about each other's daily lives. It was an empathy building experience. Check the website for lists of sites where portals are located to see if you can reserve time in a portal.
Oxfam Education has dozens of resources for teachers and students to engage in learning activities and action projects. The list of resources include in-class activities as well as supporting materials and topics ranging from environmental development issues, to national disaster relief, to the humanitarian costs of war. Oxfam's resource guide on Yemen was useful for me when teaching about the war. I wanted students to go beyond learning about the history of the conflict to considering the role that governments play, sometimes on both sides of a conflict, and ways in which students can make change locally through political advocacy. The resources provided were helpful in asking students to grapple with difficult questions and to debate the responsibilities of Western governments and their citizens.
Practical Action's Global Goals resources help teachers teach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Their materials include lesson plans, teacher guides, and student activity sheets and are suitable for elementary through high school aged students. One activity I have done with students as a way to begin a unit on sustainability and global connections is a yarn toss activity. Students work in pairs and are assigned a global issue. They talk a bit about what their issue is and then students stand in a circle. One pair begins by explaining their issue, then they toss the ball of yarn to another pair who explain their issue and then connect it with the previous group's to demonstrate the interconnection of their issues. In the end a web is formed and tugged on, demonstrating the inextricable links between global issues.
Teaching Tolerance's "Do Something" performance tasks encourage students to take on meaningful social justice action projects both in their schools and in their communities. Two projects interested me in particular: one that encourages student journalism writing about social justice issues and another about interviewing local change agents. Both of these activities encourage students to try their hand at activism. The first asks students to research a social justice issue of interest to them and then write an argumentative piece of journalism to publish. The second asks students to talk first hand with activists in their communities in order to consider how they can more mindfully take action on issues. Both are authentic expressions of understanding and require students to consider the real world implications of what they study.
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