Inside Innovative Classrooms

In sixth grade Global Studies, a dialogue among nations
Release Date: Dec. 10, 2009

I'm Mike. I live in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I make $300 a year. I think one way to help us is to stop littering and polluting the world.

No BC student traveled to Africa for this project. Instead, Mike was delivering his message into a webcam from BCMS Room 006. His voice and image were transmitted one floor up for another group of Global Studies students.

The two classrooms of Sixth Grade students were "meeting" via teleconference as part of a simulation where rich and poor nations talk about how to solve the problems of the developing world. With representatives of all of the "have" nations in one classroom and the "have nots" in another, the teleconference was set up to see if the nations can work out their differences and help improve life for citizens in the poorer nations.

The teleconference quickly turned to issues that actually do divide rich and poor countries — foreign aid; industry and currency; disease and literacy.

"I'm from Greece," says a student from the group of rich nations. "We grow a lot of crops. I can go over to your country and help you grow crops so you have more food."

The activity took place at the end of a three-week country study unit. Students researched social and economic statistics about their designated country and analyzed their findings to determine what disparities are apparent between “have” and “have not” nations. The unit is taught jointly by all four sixth grade teams.

“This offers students an opportunity to utilize technology, acquire pertinent skills and to explore and address real issues that they will be facing in their future,” Sixth Grade Global Studies teacher William Reilly said. “As active participants in an intelligence team, they collaborate to gather and combine data, analyze and communicate results, and then act upon those results to achieve positive outcomes.”

Mr. Reilly said it is a real strength of the “Have and Have Not countries” unit is that it is taught jointly by all four sixth grade teachers – himself, Jessica Casey, Katie Meislahn and Melissa Leach.

As part of this unit, the entire sixth grade also conducts a school wide homeroom coin drive, where they collect money to help pay for the tuition of students in Belize. Belize is identified as one of the “have not” countries where public education ends after 8th grade.

The students they are assisting are from the Gallon Jug School, which for the past eight years has been part of the Global Coalition project. BCMS is a founding member of the Global Coalition, an international community of schools dedicated to the cultural exchange of knowledge, ideas and projects.

The coin drive gives students the opportunity to actively impact the lives of children with whom some of our students are having personal and direct communication with.