The Global Education Project was created when a group of educators from British Columbia, Canada set out to try to get an objective look at the state of the world. They were attempting to get at ”The Big Picture,” not just this or that issue, but the most essential points of every important issue. As they call it, The Executive Summary of the state of the planet. The compiled data from the United Nations, official government agencies, academic sources, and well-respected NGOs, so as to provide what they call an “irrefutable” collection of information. The site shows- in as clear, objective, and accessible a format as possible – the condition of the world — both its natural and human elements. For the purposes of this assignment, I chose to focus mostly on the Food and Soil section, although there are many other topics that are covered throughout the website.
The Global Education Project uses both visual images and descriptions to give the student information regarding the current state of the world, in effect, giving students multiple ways of accessing the same information. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences stresses the “flexibility and variety of children’s proclivities for learning,” which this website is apparently attempting to appeal to (p. 75). By providing students with multiples way of accessing the information (there is also a series of links at the bottom of each page which can give interested students more information), the Global Education Project seeks to ensure reader (or viewer) comprehension. The information presented on the website is very powerful, and I think that it would make an excellent jumping-off point for classroom discussions on the state of the world. Through exploration of the material presented on the site, I believe students will better understand how they are a part of a global community, and how they affect and are affected by the actions of others. In this way, I believe the website applies the Instructional Multicultural Science Education approach – that is, it is presenting information about people and places all over the world, in a way that is very much Western-oriented (pp. 33-35).
Sources:
Oakes, J. & Lipton, M. (2006). Teaching to change the world. New York: MacGraw Hill.
Tabak, I. (2005). Are disciplinary distinctions pertinent to multicultural education?: A view from science. Multicultural Perspectives, 7 (4), 33-35.
