Teaching Students to Think Globally

Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 37, No. 1, 1997, 24-63.

The Global Thinking Project engages students from different countries in the exploration of global environmental topics by means of a computer-mediated telecommunications network. The project grew out of more than 15 trips to the former Soviet Union sponsored by the Association for Humanistic Psychology beginning in 1983. Through seminars, classroom visits, laboratory demonstrations, and other informal and formal experiences, international agreements were signed between Georgia State University and the Russian Academy of Education. The goals of the project serve as a vehicle to empower students and teachers in diverse communities to explore new ways to think and learn about themselves and the planet Earth, as well as to identify, explore and take action on real problems and issues. Currently the project brings together nearly 70 teachers and 2500 students from six countries to learn to think globally. Using teaching and learning materials developed by teachers, the participants in the project are joined together by virtue of the following goals:

• To empower students individually and as members of cooperative learning groups to contribute to the understanding and solution of local environmental problems that have global consequences.

• To enable students in different cultures to communicate with each other by means of computer-mediated telecommunications.

• To help students develop the knowledge, skills and affective qualities to take responsible citizenship action on environmental problems and issues.

This paper outlines the history, nature and activities of the Global Thinking Project, and discusses global thinking as a way of thinking that can serve as a model of learning in classrooms in different cultures.

Teaching Students to Think Globally

More than a dozen years have elapsed since the first Association for Humanistic Psychology (AHP) delegation went to the former Soviet Union. Who would have guessed in 1983 that we would come to use the word 'former' when referring to the Soviet Union, and who could have predicted Russian Revolutions in 1991 or 1993?

The early social history of the AHP-Soviet Exchange program was described in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology (Hassard, 1990a). In this paper I will describe the project that emerged from the people-to-people framework we developed. This project started out as an exchange of ideas about how students learn among AHPers, faculty at the Experimental Gymnasium School 710, and researchers at the Institute for General and Educational Psychology. It has evolved into the Global Thinking Project, a computer-mediated telecommunications school project in which students explore local environmental concerns and issues.

The Global Thinking Project at Georgia State University is an effort to engage teachers and students in collaborative investigations of their local environments, and in global discussions of environmental issues. We have written and field tested Global Thinking: Teacher's Resource Guide (Hassard & Weisberg, 1995), an interdisciplinary, environmental-science-based curriculum designed to help teachers engage students in a series of "projects" in which environmental issues (such as ozone, water quality, and solid waste) are investigated locally. Students collaborate globally using the computer-mediated telecommunications network of the Institute for Global Communications. At the present time, over 1200 students in grades 5-10 in 50 schools Australia, the Czech Republic, Russia, Singapore, Spain, and the United States are participating in the project. The project organizes an annual Global Summit conference for students and teachers (October), the Global Thinking Teacher Preparation Institute (July), engages graduate students and teachers in educational research projects, and facilitates people-to-people exchanges. Most recently, the GTP has received funding from the United States Information Agency (USIA‚ to support large scale student and teacher exchanges between secondary schools in the State of Georgia and Russia.

History of the Project

The Global Thinking Project grew out of a series of trips to the (former) Soviet Union sponsored by the Association for Humanistic Psychology (Hassard, 1990a). With no official invitation, a group of 30 educators and psychologists visited Moscow, Leningrad (St. Petersburg), and Tbilisi for 17 days in September 1983. Rooted in the concern for the well-being of the planet, and for improving the relationships between the people of the United States and the former Soviet Union, this delegation laid the groundwork for the development of the AHP Soviet Exchange Program.

Since 1983, the AHP has sponsored more than 20 delegations to the former republics of USSR, and received nearly a dozen delegations of Soviet colleagues. These exchanges fostered official agreements between the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (now the Russian Academy of Education) and the AHP that focused on humanistic and creative teaching methods, cooperative learning, and teacher education. Through seminars, classroom visits, lab demonstrations, and other informal experiences, a powerful network was established.

Georgia State University (GSU) emerged as the focal point for the AHP's educational activities with the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (APS). An international conference on Soviet and American education led to an agreement between GSU and the APS that was signed in Moscow in May of 1989. Both parties agreed to collaborate to develop strategies, methods, and teaching materials to help students think globally. Both sides agreed to collaborate to develop teaching materials that would:

1. Empower students and teachers to get involved with important global problems and concerns

2. Introduce students to collaborative methods and strategies of inquiry that can be used to solve problems locally, and provide the knowledge and technological means needed to deal with problems globally

3. Develop computer literacy in students that will allow them to use microcomputers as a telecommunications tool to collaborate with counterparts in other nations.

The Russian Connection

The Global Thinking Project is a grassroots environmental education project conceived in seminar rooms, and classrooms in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Atlanta. The

project owes its existence not only the AHP Soviet Exchange Program, but to the efforts of American and Soviet classroom teachers who were interested in working hand-in-hand to learn about each other, how they taught, and how to improve the quality of learning in their classrooms. As shown in Figure 1, the Global Thinking Project fostered the exchange of people and ideas through a series of meetings, seminars, and social visits. These exchanges established interdependence amongst American and Russian educators, and a way of working with each other which has become fundamental to the nature of the Global Thinking Project. Personal contact, and a deep interest and understanding of each others' professional and personal lives is one of the underpinnings of the project.

Figure 1. Global Thinking Project Timeline

Date	Location	Event
1983 - 1986	Moscow, Leningrad, Tbilisi	AHP Soviet Exchange Program sponsors annual delegations of 30 North American professional psychologists and educators to collaborate with counter-parts in the Soviet Union
1985	Moscow	Gorbachev General Secretary and President of the USSR
October, 1987	Moscow, Tbilisi, Leningrad	5th AHP delegation to USSR. Americans taught demonstration lessons at School 710 (Moscow), starting a collaborative relationship with this school to this day.
November, 1988	Moscow, Leningrad	12 member delegation from US received by the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences---laid the groundwork for formal agreement with Georgia State University, AHP and USSR-APS.
December 1988	Atlanta	Delegation of Soviets for two weeks. Wrote draft of agreement with USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences in consultation with Y. Koulutkin; first annual conference on Soviet-American Education held at GSU
May, 1989	Moscow, Leningrad	Agreement signed between Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, AHP and GSU; discussions with teachers and researchers in each city.
November, 1989	Moscow, Leningrad	Conference in Leningrad with 12 American educators and 50 Soviet educators. Drafts and outlines of topics for Global Thinking curriculum and collaborative lessons.
July, 1990	Dahlonaga, Georgia	Writing conference creating first version of Global Thinking Teacher's Guide
October, 1990	Atlanta and Jonesboro	Field test of Telecommunications and Global Thinking curriculum between two schools in the Atlanta area
December, 1990	Moscow, Leningrad	Installation of Macintosh computers, printers and modems to establish telecommunications link in five Soviet schools; teacher training seminars in each city for all Soviet pilot teachers.
February - May, 1991	Atlanta, NW Georgia, Pittsburgh, Moscow, Leningrad	Online field test of Global Thinking using AppleLink Telecommunications system
May, 1991	Moscow and Leningrad	Meetings among Soviet teachers and Project Director to discuss field test
August, 1991	Prague	3rd International Conference on Telecommunications. Collaboration with about 50 Russian scientists during the week of the attempted August coup.
October, 1991	Atlanta, Lookout Mountain, Georgia	16 member delegation of Soviet educators (all pilot teachers) meet with American pilot teachers. Retreat seminar in NW Georgia, conference in Atlanta on Global Thinking Project
October, 1991 - April, 1992	Atlanta, NW Georgia, Pittsburgh, Moscow, Leningrad	Field test of Global Thinking using AppleLink Telecommunications System
April, 1992	Moscow, St. Petersburg	Delegation of 16 high school students and 4 teachers from a Global Thinking school (Dunwoody High School, Georgia)
May, 1992	Atlanta	Advisory Board meeting to make recommendations for changes in the curriculum based on field test
June - August, 1992	Atlanta	Revision and writing of the 2nd Edition of the Global Thinking Teachers Resource Guide
September, 1992	Moscow, St. Petersburg	Teacher training sessions with all Russian pilot teachers, meetings with Institute for New Technologies, and Moscow State University
October , 1992	Atlanta	Delegation of 16 high students and 5 teachers from Moscow School N710
October, 1992	Norcross, Georgia (Simpsonwood Conference Center)	Global Summit '92. Conference for all pilot teachers in Georgia (52), student representatives from each Georgia pilot class, and Russian students and teachers from Moscow N710.
October, 1992 - May, 1993	Australia, Georgia (20 schools), Russia (schools in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Yaroslavl), Spain and New Zealand	Field test of the Global Thinking curriculum using the EcoNet, and affiliated telecommunications systems: Glasnet (Russia), Greennet (Europe), Pegasus (Australia)
January - February, 1993	Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl	13 member delegation of pilot teachers and educators to Russia--Global Thinking conferences in each city; research project investigating students' concerns about the environment (simultaneously in Georgia, Barcelona, and Australia)
July, 1993	Simpsonwood Conference Center, Norcross, Georgia	First annual Global Thinking Teacher Leadership Institute (22 teachers from Australia, Spain and the US)
September 1993 - May 1994	43 schools from Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, UK, and the US	Schools organized into four Global Communities (of about 10 schools each) to participate in the Global Thinking Project telecommunications curriculum focusing on environmental projects.
November 1993	Atlanta, Georgia (Georgia State University)	Mini-symposium on research on Global Thinking---results published in March, 1994 (Golley & Hassard, 1994)
July 1994	Simpsonwood Conference Center, Norcross, Georgia	Second Annual Global Thinking Teacher Leadership Institute (teachers from Australia, Russia, Spain, & the United States)
September 1994 - June 1995	43 schools from Australia, the Czech Republic, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, UK, and the US	Schools organized into four Global Communities (of about 10 schools each) to participate in the Global Thinking Project telecommunications curriculum focusing on environmental projects.
May 1995 - June 1996	Five Georgia cities and ffive Russian cities	GTP---Georgia/Russia Student and Teacher Exchange, Funded by the USIA. 50 American and 50 Russian students and 20 teachers participate in GTP exchange
July 1995	Simpsonwood Conference Centr	Third Annual Global Thinking Teacher Leadership Institute (Teachers from Australia, Spain, Russia and the United States
June 1996	Atlanta, Georgia	The Second GTP---Georgia/Russia Student and Teacher Exchange between Russia and the Untied States funded by the USIA
September 1996 - May 1997	40 Schools world wide	Schools organized into four Global Communities (of about 10 schools each) to participate in the Global Thinking Project telecommunications curriculum focusing on environmental projects.

Linking for Learning

The Global Thinking Project was one of the first efforts by American and Russian teachers to establish telecommunications connections between their students (Berenfeld, 1992, Hassard & Weisberg, 1992). In December 1989, 12 Americans from Georgia transported six Macintosh computers, printers and Hayes modems to Moscow, and over a period of ten days, delivered and set up the computer systems in five Russian schools (Moscow schools 91, and 710, and St. Petersburg schools 91, 157 and 239) and the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. Teacher preparation seminars were held in each school to show the teachers how to use the technology, as well as how to implement the Global Thinking curriculum. Using the AppleLink telecommunications system and the SOVAM Teleport in Moscow, telecommunications connections were made among five Russian and six American schools---one in Pittsburgh, three in the Atlanta area, and two in Walker County (Northwest region of Georgia).

During the Winter and Spring of 1990 these eleven schools participated in the first Global Thinking field test. A second field test using the same curriculum materials was conducted during the 1990-1991 school year involving the same schools. The project conducted an evaluation study, had experts in science education, curriculum and environmental science evaluate and make recommendations concerning the project materials, and held a meeting among teachers, scientists and science educators to make suggestions for change (Hassard & Weisberg, 1992). The results of these first efforts to link American and Russian students led to the development of the present Global Thinking Project curriculum framework (Figure 2).

Beyond America and Russia

How does a project grow? How should it grow? We have not set out deliberately to involve schools from other regions of the world. However, it has happened. The way the project has grown, and continues to expand is through the process of networking. Two examples will show how this has happened. In February of 1991 I received an email message from Narcis Vives, a teacher and director of a telmatics project in Barcelona. He said he had learned about the Global Thinking Project from his involvement in another telecommunications project, and since Barcelona and Atlanta were linked via the Olympics, he wondered if we would be interested in some form of collaboration. In May he traveled to Atlanta to visit the project, as well as schools he had made contact with through telecommunications. After visiting some of the project schools, and examining the Global Thinking materials, he suggested that some Barcelona schools join the project for the 1992-1993 school year. Nine schools joined the project. The GTP Center in Barcelona now includes fifteen schools that are actively involved in the project.

In October, 1992, Roger Cross, a science education professor at LaTrobe University, Melbourne, Australia joined the faculty at Georgia State University for part of his Sabbatical leave year. I had met Roger two years earlier at the National Science Teachers Association meeting held in Atlanta. While at GSU, he got involved in the Global Thinking Project by working with some of our doctoral students who were beginning research projects on Global Thinking, and by collaborating with us on the Global Summit. At the Global Summit, over 100 Global Thinking students and teachers from Georgia and Russia participated in a two-day conference on the banks of the Chattahoochie River near Atlanta to engage in environmental projects and discussions. While at GSU, he suggested that some schools in Australia and New Zealand might be interested in the project, as well as schools in the U.K. Letters were drafted to schools in these countries, and when Cross returned to Australia, six schools joined the project by February of 1993. One U.K school has joined the project, as well.

As a result of this process, schools in these regions (Barcelona, Australia, Russia) have become empowered to be leaders of Global Thinking in their own right. Cross has made contacts in China, Singapore and India and has encouraged schools there to join the project. Two schools from Singapore joined the project in March, 1994. Narcis Vives and his colleagues received funding to translate the Global Thinking Teacher's Resource Guide into their native language (Catalan). Vives and his colleagues have also made contacts with schools in some South American nations, and one school from Argentina has joined the project. Vadim Zhudov, director of school 710 in Mocow, and his colleagues made arrangements to translate Global Thinking into Russian and distribute it to all the Russian schools in the project.

Because we have received funding from the Eisenhower Higher Education Program, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, we have been able to extend the outreach of the program to additonal schools and teachers in Georgiaand invite teachers from other countries to attend summer institutes in Atlanta.

The Global Thinking Project

The Context of Reform

Recent efforts to reform the science curriculum in the United States have focused on Project 2061: Science for All Americans (AAAS, 1989), and the Project on Scope, Sequence and Coordination (Aldredge, 1992). These reform efforts have been influenced by findings on how students construct their knowledge of science and on cooperative learning. According to the constructivist model, students "construct" their own meaning and develop concepts through experience and reflection (von Glasersfeld, 1988; Shamansky, 1992; Yager, 1992). One implication of constructivism for the curriculum is more depth and less breadth. Instead of skipping from one topic to another in rapid succession, science teachers would engage students in topics for sufficient time to facilitate the "construction" of knowledge. Cooperative learning fosters the development of communities of student learners organized into small mixed-ability teams to discuss ideas and solve problems (Blosser, 1992; Cohen, 1986; Hassard, 1990b; Johnson, Johnson, & Koubleck, 1986). Problem solving in the context of communities of student learners leads to collaborative inquiry (Rosebery, Warren, & Connant, 1992). Collaborative inquiry has emerged as a powerful model of teaching that envisions students engaged in authentic explorations of science, and teachers assuming the role of facilitator. However, there is evidence that teachers need experience working collaboratively on teams to understand and be able to implement collaborative inquiry projects (Raupp, 1992).

Despite the effort set forth in these major reform proposils, serious questions have been raised regarding the vision of literacy that they promote. Eisenhart, Finkel and Marion (1996) "disagree with the imlicit assumption that teaching students key concepts and scientific methods of inquiry will necessarily lead to socially responisble use or to a larger and more diverse citizenry who particiapte in discussion and debate of scientific issues. (p. 268)" The GTP was an outgrowth of the AHP Soviet Exchange Project, that fostered socially active behavior among North American and Soviet citizens. As such, a goal of the GTP has been to seek ways to help students become socially responsible citizens. Galina Manke, the coordinator of the GTP in Russia and director of science at Moscow Experimental School 710, indicated that the goal of teaching GTP in Russian schools was to show students how become "fighters for the environment." She, and her colleagues believe that students should develop the abilities to not only "do science" but to help change the nature of the environment in Russia.

The development of new technologies has fostered new ways of conceptualizing the teaching of science (Tinker, 1993). One area that has been receiving greater and greater attention has been the use of telecommunications in science teaching to create technology-mediated communities of learning. Projects such as the National Geographic Society KidsNet (Weir, 1992), TERC's Labnet (Raupp, 1992), and TERC's Global Laboratory (Global Laboratory Project, 1992) use telecomputing and team learning to establish communities of science learners.

While telecommunications can provide a structure for collaboration among teachers and students, teachers need experiences which will help them implement such complex projects (Ruopp, 1992). Very few teachers have had experience using telecommunications, and even fewer have integrated distance-learning into science teaching (Hunter, 1992). A sustained program of teacher education is needed; one which not only provides the technical training teachers need to master telecommunications technology, but also provides ongoing support as they begin to engage their students in telecommunications-mediated collaborative inquiry projects. Ellis (1992) reported that in order for new technologies to be integrated into science instruction, teachers must have access to, know how to, have the skills to, and want to used the proposed new technology in teaching.

GSU has established a leadership institute and implementation program so that middle and high school science, social studies and mathematics teachers and supervisors are able to receive the training and support needed to integrate telecommunications-mediated learning into their schools. Rather than seeing technology-mediated distance learning as a means of delivering content, we have designed a program that connects people (students, teachers, scientists) in the common enterprise of global thinking through the exploration of environmental problems and issues (Brunner, 1992). We are more interested in helping students ask questions, probe, and reflect about the environment rather than deleiver "content" to them. The project includes an intensive Summer Leadership Institute where teachers from around the world convene to learn about teaching global thinking, an academic-year implementation and support program in which schools implement the curriculum of the Global Thinking Project, and a world-wide Global Thinking Project telecommunications network established on the Institute for Global Communications (IGC) system. Building on our previous work, we are working towards an ongoing global community of teachers and students who develop the knowledge, skills, affect and behavior to achieve environmental literacy.

The Global Thinking Curriculum

The Global Thinking Teacher's: Resource Guide (Hassard & Weisberg, 1995) provides a framework for teachers in different cultures to engage their students in collaborative research with students in their own as well as other countries. The curriculum consists of a series of the projects in which students learn to monitor important physical and biological aspects of their local environment in order to study such topics as weather and climate change, air pollution, water pollution, acid rain, ozone, solid waste management (see Figure 2). Monitoring is the first step in developing an understanding of global environmental problems. We go beyond this step by providing students with opportunities to apply their "new" knowledge by engaging in cooperative team projects that link students in classrooms globally. In each project, students take action on the local environmental issue they investigate. Thus in the context of real problems set in the local setting, students are encouraged to take responsible action and to seek ways to be socially responsible.

GTP View of Environmental Education.

Environmental education has had a close association with progressive and "new" methods of teaching and learning. Dewey (1958) emphasized the importance and value of involving students in the exploration of the environment. Yet environmental education has played a minor role in the curriculum not only in the United States, but in many other countries as well (Hassard, 1992, McIlveene, 1996). Fortunately there is trend toward rethinking the place of environmental education in the process of schooling, and in recent years there have been several projects focusing on environmental topics. How should environmental education be viewed in the context of global thinking?

International views of environmental education. International organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank have convened conferences on environmental education and have defined the nature of environmental education, and courses of action that the nations of the world must take to establish sustainable living environments---in particular, the Belgrade Charter (1976), the Tbilisi Conference (1979), and the UN Conference on the Environment in Rio de Janeiro (1992). The environment is a concern of developed and developing nations, and student involvement in investigating and exploring environmental education should be of paramont value in the goals and objectives of each nations' educational system. However, the approach to presenting environmental education should not be based on the old model of thinking, but should incorporate to the extent possible, the model of global thinking.

The paradigm of global thinking presented here has emphasized active learning in which students apply the anticipatory/participatory model of learning. Further, students should have opportunities to engage in action-taking environmental projects. Of particular interest is the agreement by educators from many nations to a general approach and philosophy of envvironmental education embodied in the Belgrade Charter.

Education about, in and for the Environment. Michel (1996) described an analysis devised by Lucas to classify environmental education into three groupings, education about, in and for the environment (Figure 2)

Figure 2. Comparison of Education About the Environment with Education for the Environment (Michel, 1996).

Education about the Environment	Education for the Environment
• Reproductive curriculum • Predominately an emphasis on the sciences • Employment of "traditional" teaching methods (lecture, recall, worksheets) • Emphasis on cognitive skills • Operates within the existing hierarchical, subject specific school organization	• Reconstructive curriculum • Predominately an emphasis on social science • Advocation of student-centered approach with emphasis on inquiry and problem solving. • Emphasis on awareness, values, and attitudes as well as skills and knowledge. Advocation of practical action in the environment. • Interdisciplinary approach

Education about the environment is viewed as an approach in which information about the environment (concepts, facts, information) is transmitted by teacher to students. This approach reinforces traditional methods of teaching including lectures, reconstructive laboratory activities, and the recall of information. It is based on the older, traditional model of teaching.

Education in the environment focuses on using the environment as the medium for teaching and learning. Michel points out that this form of environmental education emphases experiential learning, and that experiences in the environment aids personal growth and moral development. Student projects tend to fall into a safe zone such as anti-littering campaigns, and environmental awareness activities.

Education for the environment, according to Michel (1996), evolved from conservation education which focused on the preservation of basic resources and nature conservancy. This concept of environmental education expanded to include environmental protection, and the role that citizens began to take action (individually and collectively) in the solution of environmental problems. Michel claims that education for the environment could be interpreted as a response to the perceived environmental crisis. Michel also points out that education for the environment is the approach advocated by several international proposals including the Belgrade Charter (1976) and the Tbilisi Declaration (1978).

Environmental education that is based on the "education for the environment" model embodies some of the principles of Deep Ecology (Devall & Sessions, 1985). Deep Ecology, coined by Arne Naess, is a deeper approach to the study of nature exemplified in the work of Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson (Devall & Sessions, 1985). In this sense, teachers encourage their students to engage in projects that help them see the link between themselves and nature as well as advocating a wholistic approach to looking at environmental topics. Students might investigate the health of a nearby stream not only by making physical, chemical and biological studies, but also exploring the value of the stream to the total ecology of the area, explore further the causes of any pollution found in the stream, and indeed take some action on trying to resolve the problem. Perhaps teachers help students realize Commoner's major "laws" of ecology which describe a deep ecology perspective (as cited in Devel & Sessions, 1985):

1. Everything is connected to everything else.

2. Everything must go somewhere.

3. Nature knows best.

4. There is no such thing as a free lunch, or everything has to go somewhere.

Education for the environment conceives of students who are not only involved in learning about the environment, but "are provided with the knowledge, values, attitudes and commitment and skills needed to protect and improve the environment (Tibilisi Declaration, 1978, p.3, as cited in Michel, 1996). The Global Thinking Project supports this approach to environmental education.

Global Thinking Learning Model.

Each project is organized as a learning cycle. We begin by helping students' elicit their prior experiences and knowledge, and then engage the students in the exploration and development of concepts about an environmental topic (air quality, water quality). Finally students apply their knowledge by participating in action taking projects. These four stages--eliciting prior knowledge, exploring, developing concepts, and taking action--define the constructivist learning model we have used in the development of the Global Thinking "projects." (von Glasersfeld, 1988; Shamansky, 1992; Yager, 1992)

Global Thinking "Projects" As shown in Figure 3, the curriculum of the Global Thinking Project is organized into a sequence of "projects." During Phase I, students explore their own environment, gather and share data on environmental problems, and learn how to work together in cooperative teams and how to use telecommunications to collaborate with peers in other schools by participating in Project Hello and Project Clean Air. During this phase, schools are assigned to a Global Community consisting of about 10 schools from around the world. Students send and receive electronic messages from the schools in their Global Community to promote friendship, and facilitate collaboration. Although they have access to a larger community for data, and resources, the real activity on the network is among these smaller clusters of schools.

Figure 3. Implementation Plan of the Global Thinking Project

Phase I			Phase II			Phase III
Establishing the Global Thinking Community			Collaborating Globally in Environmental Projects			Thinking Locally; Acting Globally
September	October		December	through	February	March	April	May
Project Hello	ProjectClean Air		Choose	from Project Solid Waste ProjectOzone Project Water Watch	among	Preparing for--->	Project Earthmonth	Project Evaluation

During Phase II, each class selects one project for in-depth investigation. Schools in the Project work together to investigate environmental problems related to air, water, or land (Project Solid Waste, Project Water Watch or Project Ozone).

During Phase III, the entire Global Thinking Project participates in Project Earthmonth. Students identify and implement local environmental improvement projects, as well as participate in global telecommunications forums.

The Global Thinking Telecommunications Network:

A Community of Practice

The development of new technologies has impacted the teaching of science by allowing the creation of technology-mediated communities of science learners. Projects such as the National Geographic Society KidsNet (Weir, 1992), TERC's Labnet (Ruopp, 1992), and TERC's Global Laboratory (Global Laboratory Project, 1992) have demonstrated that it is possible to use telecommunications and team learning to link teachers and students together as they engage in collaborative research projects. Since 1989, we have worked to create a Global Thinking Electronic Community of Practice, which now includes more than 50 schools in 8 countries.

Global Thinking Project schools in the United States are linked together using the EcoNet telecommunications system, part of the Institute for Global Communications. Schools outside the U.S. are linked with the project by means of affiliated networks such as GlasNet (Russia), Pangea (Spain) and Pegasus (Australia and New Zealand). We have established three conferences on EcoNet (gtp.earthconf, gtp.teachers, and gtp.scientist), which create electronic environments in which students and teachers can interact publicly with each other. In addition, schools within a Global Community use email to send messages to members of their group.

Schools in the Global Thinking Project use the ALICE Network software developed by TERC. The ALICE software enables students to send reports and data tables across the network. Students also use the software to analyze data, create graphs, and map the results of their work.

Global Thinking---A New Learning Paradigm

A paradigm is a model, pattern or example of one's way of perceiving reality. A number of writers have described the importance of paradigms in determining the way we look at and interpret reality (Barker, 1992; Harman, 1970; Kuhn, 1962) Global thinking can be understood, in the context of schooling and learning, if it is viewed as a paradigm shift. The shift is from a traditional view of learning, to one that represents thinking that is synergic and holistic (Figure 4).

Figure 4: The Paradigm Shift from the Traditional (Old) Model to the Global Thinking Model (New)

The Traditional Model

The Global Thinking Model

• Traditional, mechanized thinking • Individualistic--although students may at times work together in groups, interdependence typically is not a goal. • Dependence--teacher-directed instructional model establishes a dependent social system. • Hierarchical---choice-made-for-you. Rarely do students choose content or methodology for their investigations • Emphasis on literacy: knowing facts, skills, concepts • Emphasis on content; acquiring the right body of knowledge • Learning encourages recall, and is analytical and linear

• Innovative, flexible thinking • Cooperative--students work collaboratively in small teams to think and take action together • Interdependence--a synergic system is established in groups within a classroom, and within global communities of practice. • Right-to-choose---students are involved in choice-making including problem and topic selection, as well as solutions; reflects the action processes of grassroots organizations • A new literacy insofar as "knowledge" relates to human needs, the needs of the environment and the social needs of the earth's population and other living species • Emphasis on anticipation and participation; on inquiry, learning how to learn, and how to ask questions • Learning encourages creative thinking, and is holistic and intuitive

What is global thinking? I will try to present an answer to the question by examining global thinking from a number of perspectives including science and the social sciences. The paradigm of global thinking is not new. We shall see that global thinking in the context of schools has roots in the work of such psychologists as Dewey, Rogers, Vygotsky, Piaget and von Glasersfeld. Further we can trace roots of global thinking to the ideas of such scientists as Einstein, Carson, Vernadsky, and Margulis. Further we shall see that educators such as Springer (1993) have examined global thinking in the context of schools, and conclude that the global thinking paradigm calls for the reexamination of educational goals and objectives based on honest answers to the question:

"What does it mean to be well educated in a global society?"

Jerome Bruner provides a cautionary note for educators. Bruner believes that education needs to consider aspects of human wisdom and philosophical depth. Recently, he commented on reform projects in the United States and made the point that "What we need is a reform movement with a better sense of where we are going, with deeper convictions about what kind of people we want to be." (Bruner, 1992, p.6). In this sense, Bruner suggests we ought to think about why we have focused on making education a global playing field in which students in one country are pitted against another. He puts it this way:

"It might even lead us to question why, for example, we have made such an exclusive fetish about improving our record in science and mathematics rather than, say, concentrating our effort as well on teaching our students about the politics and economics of the revolutionary world changes through which we are living, or about why human nature risks its neck in the interest of freedom in Tianenman Square in Peking, or in East Berlin, in Prague, in Bucharest, in Vilnius. I am not against providing the nation with scientifically and mathematically literate workers so that we can outcompete the Japanese or the new Europe in world markets---as if that aim alone could ever inspire either teachers or students (emphasis mine). We forget at our peril that the great leap forward in Eastern Europe and soon, hopefully, in South America and in the Republic of China was led not so much by mathematicians and scientists (although they were there too) but by playwrights, poets, philosophers, and even music teachers. What marks a Nelson Mandela or a Vaclav Havel is human wisdom and philosophical depth." (Bruner, 1992, pp. 5-6)

Roots of Global Thinking

Shortly after World War II ended, in May 1946, Albert Einstein wrote a fund-raising letter for the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists. He started out his letter by saying:

"Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing the power to make great decisions for good or evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." (Holt, 1984, p.199)

Later in the letter he stated, "We need $200, 000 at once for a nation-wide campaign to inform the American people that a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels" (emphasis mine).

Although Einstein didn't say it directly, perhaps he meant systemic or holistic thinking was required if we were to survive. Perhaps the mode Einstein envisioned was global thinking. If we look around at the major environmental problems and issues facing the earth today, most have global causes and effects. Even though problems like ozone depletion, climate change, and acid rain can be traced to actions and activities at the local level (including households), the effects of these problems are global. And indeed the causes can be traced to global systems.

Another scientist, but living in a different culture, who recognized the need for a new way of thinking was the Russian scientist Andrei Sakharov. In 1962, Sakharov advised the Soviet government that atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons should be banned. Although Sakharov wasn't successful at first in convincing his government, his dissident views eventually led to the banning of atmospheric testing, thereby protecting the planet from the effects of nuclear fallout.

About the same time that Sakharov began to speak out about nuclear testing in the atmosphere, Rachel Carson warned all citizens that living things faced disaster and that a "silent spring" might occur. Her book by that title succinctly described the global links in the biosphere, and deadly effects of some chemical sprays (especially DDT) on the pyramid of life. Carson's book led to legislation in the U.S. Congress that eventually put some controls on the use of certain chemicals for the control of "weeds" and "pests." Rachel Carson helped the ordinary person understand the interdependence among living things from the tiniest plankton to the largest of whales, thereby setting in motion the beginnings of the environmental movement that was given impetus later by the first Earthday in 1970, and more recently marked by the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

The way global thinking stimulates an awareness of the planet Earth was surely manifested when pictures were sent back to Earth by Apollo astronauts giving single-celled picture of Earth. Looking back toward Earth, astronauts and cosmonauts saw at once that the Earth was whole. Yet this new awareness was more than a visual picture of the Earth, it led to something more powerful. Global awareness implies that things are connected, that the atmosphere over Toledo, Ohio can affect the trees in Canada, that clear cutting the forests of Brazil could change the temperature of Moscow, and recycling newspapers could reduce the chances of oil spills.

And just as the space age has given us new visual images of Earth, it has led to new questions and theories. One of the scientists to work on the Martian project that looked for signs of life on the "red planet" was James Lovelock. Lovelock and his colleagues on the Martian project devised a number of "life-detection" experiments. One of their suggestions was that a planet bearing life might have an unexpected mix of gases in its atmosphere if life's chemistry were at work. Dr. Norman Myers, editor of GAIA: An Atlas of Planetary Management, describes Lovelock's breakthrough this way:

"When they looked at Earth in this light (having an unexpected mix of gases), their predictions were borne out with a vengeance. Earth's mix of gases, and temperature, were hugely different from what they predicted for a "nonliving" Earth, as well as from neighboring planets. The fact that these conditions appeared to have arisen and persisted alongside life led to the Gaia hypothesis---the proposal that the biosphere, like a living organism, operates its own "life-support" systems through natural mechanisms."

What Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margolis, co-author of the Gaia hypothesis, suggested was that the earth's atmosphere was not simply a product of the biosphere but was a "biological construction---like a cat's fur, or a bird's feathers; an extension of a living system, designed to maintain a chosen environment" (Lovelock & Margulis, 1984).

Although there is much dispute within the scientific community regarding the idea, the Gaia hypothesis is a useful concept to help students think about the interrelationship of Earth's basic resources---energy, water, air, and climates (Lovelock, 1988). According to the Gaia hypothesis these elemental resources can be radically affected by changes in any one of them. Many of the projects in the Global Thinking curriculum focus on these elemental resources, and enable students to get involved by monitoring them, asking questions about them, and conducting projects to find out more about them. It also should be pointed out that the management of these elemental resources is what many environmental action groups advocate.

Global awareness and the Gaia hypothesis support a new way of reasoning about the earth, its environment, and inhabitants (all living things), namely global thinking.

Space age explorers were not the first to think of the Earth in this way. A Scottish scientist, James Hutton (a geologist) proposed in 1785 that the Earth was a living super organism. He actually suggested that the science of the Earth should be physiology! It 's odd that the "father of geology" would perceive the solid Earth as a living organism.

Another scientist who viewed the Earth as alive planet was Vladimir Iranovitch Vernadsky, a famous Russian scientist (1863 - 1945). Vernadsky, perhaps as much as anyone, laid the foundation for global thinking. Vernadsky is credited by inventing several fields of science, each of which was characterized by interdisciplinary study. For example, one field he suggested was biogeochemistry, literally the integration of biology, geology, and chemistry (Lapo, 1982).

But perhaps more pertinent to global thinking is the fact that Vernadsky coined the concept of "biosphere." He encouraged scientists to focus their attention on the "sphere of life." According to Vernadsky the so called living and nonliving parts of the Earth were interdependent and tied to each other. In fact Vernadsky called life a "disperse of rock." To him life was a chemical process in which rock was transformed into active living matter and back, breaking it up, and moving it about in a never ending cyclic process.

Learning to Think Globally

Two main concepts underlie the paradigm of global thinking:

• Anticipation

• Participation

Anticipation in learning is the capacity to face new situations. It is the ability to deal with the future, to predict coming events, and understand the consequences of current and future actions. Anticipation also implies "inventing" future scenarios, and developing the philosophy that humankind can influence future events.

Participation, on the other hand, is the complimentary side of anticipation. Students must participate directly in learning. The learning model that underlies global thinking is based on the following constructivist ideas (von Glasersfeld, 1988)

• knowledge is not passively received but actively constructed by the student.

• the function of cognition is adaptive and it organizes the experiential world.

Participation has local and global components. Action locally is based on a view of environmental education which is described as "education for the environment (Figure 4)." In this view students not only become knowledgeable about the environment, but aware of environmental problems, how to solve them, and motivated to work toward their solution (Michel, 1996). The design of learning experiences, described earlier, includes an action-taking component that is fundamental to the idea of participation. The other component of participation is global. The use of telecommunications enables students to extend participation beyond their own communities. Telecommunications sets up cross-cultural partnerships, global communities, and global summits for studying common global concerns. Springer suggests that telecommunications used for dialog with peers on the other side of the globe is based on the work of the Russian psychologist Vygotsky. Vygotsky viewed knowledge being constructed in a social context, with student's ideas being influenced by the ideas and interactions with others (Springer, 1993).

The global problems that students explore in environmental education (air pollution, acid rain, solid waste management, water pollution, ozone) have local causes. Because of this, students are involved not only in learning about them, but participating in solutions to them as well. This is accomplished by participating in hands-on activities in which they pose questions, gather and analyze their own data, and take action on their findings.

A quote from the book, No Limits to Learning provides further insight to the concept of participation:

"Participation in relation to global issues necessarily implies several simultaneous levels. On the one hand, the battleground of global issues is local. It is in the rice fields and irrigation ditches, in the shortages of over-abundance of food, in the school on the corner and the initiation rites to adulthood. It is in the totality of personal and social life-patterns. Thus participation is necessarily anchored in the local setting. Yet it cannot be confined to localities. Preservation of the ecological and cultural heritage of humanity, resolution of energy and food problems, and national and international decisions about other great world issues all necessitate an understanding of the behaviour of large systems whose complexity requires far greater competence than we now possess. The need to develop greater competence and to take new initiatives is pressing. For example, during times of danger or after a natural catastrophe, nearly everyone participates. Can we not learn to participate constructively when animated by a vision of the common good rather than a vision of the common danger?" (Botkin, 1979, p.199)

A Paradigm Shift

Global thinking is a pattern of thinking. It represents a shift in thinking from an old, traditional model to a new, and flexible model (Figure 3). In the old view, thinking was mechanized and individualistic based on an industrial model, whereas global thinking is relativistic, interdependent and cooperative based on an holistic model.

This model of thinking has implications for schools. In the old model, school objectives and curriculum were driven by subject-specific disciplines. Courses and programs were organized to teach students about the subject, e.g. science, history, geography, mathematics. The new model suggests a different way of organizing courses, and expereiences. Springer (1993) suggests that:

Global thinking takes direction from societal concerns rather than from the inward structure of traditional education. Global thinking means looking at the process of schooling differently, considering what it means to be well educated in a global society. Global Thinking presents man as a constructivist, a social scientist capable of using a wide range of scientific attitude skills to develop theories for inventing the future and affecting change. Applying the anticipatory/participation model, global thinking facilitates interactions, connections and partnerships that allow students to experience the social nature of knowledge (Springer, p.79).

A number of themes emerge as organizing principles for global thinking. Springer (1993) presents a model of global thinking that emphasizes two themes:

• Interdependence

• Right-to-choose

Springer sees global thinking as a means of helping students accommodate to the rapid globalization of the world by becoming aware of and acting on the themes of interdependence and right-to-choose. Interdependence requires action on the part of the student. Understanding interdependence must go beyond the definition, and be based on real work by the students. Providing experiences in which students learn about interconnections among global problems is essential. Collaborating on cooperative projects with students in other cultures is one example of how to "teach" interdependence.

As Springer points out, "the right-to-choose" metaphor has emerged around the world as people have demanded the right to participate in all aspects of their lives. Of importance here is the fact that grassroots movements have had powerful impacts on how people think about change. As people have realized how powerful their images of reality are, they have demanded the right-to-choose. This notion has a profound affect on the decisions that are made about how and what to teach. Providing students opportunities to enact their ideas to solve problems, indeed to select the problems they wish to investigate, is in sync with global thinking.

Global Thinking Case Studies

Global thinking provides an alternative path that teachers and schools can use to involve students in learning. Learning is active. Students are viewed as active agents sometimes monitoring the air or a local stream, writing to local legislative representatives, interviewing people in the community, writing and reading electronic mail sent and received from around the world. Two cases are presented to give examples of how the GTP provides a different means to achieve many of the goals that educators think are important. The first case concerns a refugee camp in Bosnia, and how students and teachers involved in the GTP participated in a number of events to support the people in the camp. The second case shows how students from two different cultures, living and working together, can achieve success in the solution of environmental problems.

Camp Veli Joze

School projects like Global Thinking provide students opportunities to engage in real events that are often times unpredictable to forecast, but may be the most meaningful experiences in students' school lives. Often it is these events that are the richest and most profound, and bring students in touch with a depth of human experience rarely occurring in school. An example will illustrate this point, and underscore Springer's emphasis on the metaphors of interdependence and right-to-choose, as well as what does it mean to be well educated in a global society.

In December of 1992, Narcis Vives coordinator of the Global Thinking Project in Barcelona posted a message about a refuge camp in Zagreb, Bosnia on the main electronic bulletin board of the Global Thinking Project (on Econet the bulletin board is gtp.earthconf). His message, in part, read as follows:

gtp.earthconf 65

Topic: School in Refugee Camp, Croatia

From: gn!nvives Sun 20 Dec. 92

To: jhasssard@igc.apc.org

Dear Jack,

I am working with a group of people in Catalonia to start a telecommunications humanitarian project related with help and support to a school in a refugee camp in Zagreb that could be interesting and valuable. Centre Educatiu Projecte, which is my school, coordinates the project. Maybe other GTP schools would like to participate. I would like your opinion and advice.

...There are more than 3 million refugees due to the war in Croatia and Bosnia. The number of refugees and people who have had to leave their cities and villages in Croatia is about 800,000. In a small peninsula in the Adriatic Sea, near the Italian and Slovenian coasts there are 500,000 of those refugees. There, near Savaudrija, where there was a camping area before the war, we find the refugee camp Veli Joze with about 1,050 people. Most of them are women, boys and girls, youth and old people. They've been there for four to seven months.

...Most of the children have suffered a big trauma, and their psychic conditions are affected by it. They show it by means of crying, fears, sleeping and eating troubles, night dreads, phobic reactions, obsessions, frustration and violent behavior.

...The main goal of the project is to help consolidate the school in the refugee camp Veli Joze. Schools in the Global Thinking Project can collaborate by having teachers send ideas on how to deal with children who are suffering the consequences of war; students can send solidarity letters, poems, articles sent to newspapers and then sent to the children in the camp showing them that they are not alone and sharing solidarity with them; and there is a great need for school materials: pencils, pens, paper, notebooks, drawings, pictures, games...

During the experience we can have daily FAX information from the Veli Joze camp which can be transported to the networks we will use. I am considering sending a computer and modem to the camp to have direct email access. I don't know if it will be difficult to reach APC (Association for Progessive Communications) from Zagreb. I've looked in the GreenNet user's directory and there are two GreenNet users in there.

If we succeed in consolidating this school and getting to know the problems of these children affected by war, others schools in refugee camps will surely grow and telecommunications will show its power and the solidarity between schools.

Narcis

After reading this email letter, I posted the following letter in the gtp.earthconference the next day:

gtp.earthconf: 66

Topic: Note on the Refugee Camp

Written: Dec. 21, 1992 by jhassard

Dear Teachers and Students,

Narcis Vives, director of the Global Thinking Project schools in Barcelona has sent a message that I have posted as topic #65 in gtp.earthconf. I would like you to read the topic and would like us to consider how schools might participate in the request to provide some help to the school children in Camp Veli Joze. I hope to hear from some of you by email regarding some suggestions. In the meantime, I will get back to in touch with Narcis and discuss with him some possible things the Global Thinking Project can do.

Narcis' proposal to the Global Thinking Project resulted in bringing together students and teachers from three continents to focus their thoughts and actions on a refugee camp in a remote location in Bosnia, thousands of miles from their schools. The events that followed Narcis' original invitation reflect the humanistic potential of global thinking in general, and telecommunications in particular. Here are some of the events that followed:

1. On January, Narcis Vives posted a message on the Global Thinking bulletin board written by a young Bosnian boy, Sanel Cekik who lived in the Veli Joze camp. The original telecommunications message was written in a Servo-Croatian dialect and was translated by three American high school students from the Coldspring Harbor High School (New York). The message written by Sanel was as follows:

The war slowly but surely came over our city. After some time, it happened; Serbs took over the city as everywhere they started with their terrible torture. My incident is next. One night in my apartment where unfortunately was my father, came four Serb soldiers. First they beat him (my father is 60 years old). Then they made horrible wounds on his back, on his forehead, and his hands with razor blades. The next day when I came and saw him in this condition, I was very shaken. This picture is going to forever stay in my mind as the pictures of many other people and children who were killed by the Serbs. A message to the whole world from me and all the children, my friends, and from all other refugees. Thank you for all the help. Stop this damned war!!

2. In early February, 1993, Narcis announced on the gtp.earthconf that Friday, February 26, 1993 would be a Day of Solidarity for camp Veli Joze. He said this: "We are planning to organize a solidarity day on Friday the 26th February. A very well known Catalan clown is traveling with two teachers to act for the Bosnian children. I have received a lot of drawings and writings from Veli Joze which will be exposed at Centre Educatiu Projecte on the 26th. Student from the eight schools in Barcelona will meet together to see these drawing, see slides from the camp, sing peace songs and know each other. Till now they have only used telecommunications to coordinate the campaign in favour of Veli Joze."

3. Solidarity Day---February 26, 1993. Barcelona schools met and celebrated a solidarity festival among eight schools. The day before Solidarity Day, three Catalan teachers and a clown left Barcelona for the camp with a lot of school material. In the morning of the 26th, Veli Joze and the Catalan schools participated in a live teleconference. All the Catalan schools and the camp were connected by computer seeing each others' messages at the same time. Narcis posted this message a few days later:

"It was very moving to start receiving messages from Bosnian children and then sending them solidarity messages which they read at the moment. They also answered questions posted by Catalan children. Half an hour later I was invited to a radio program to talk about the solidarity day. We could also talk to a Catalan Volunteer in Veli Joze who explained what they were going to do during this solidarity day. All the Catalan schools were listening to the radio and happy to listen to the impact that their project is having not only in Catalonia but also in other countries (I have received messages from Australia, Israel, Chile, Russia, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Croatia, and different states in the United States). In the afternoon the Catalan schools were invited to Centre Educatiu Projecte where they could see an exhibition of drawings made by Bosnian children at Veli Joze. They could also attend a Lumaphone conference between Veli Joze, two schools in New York, and Barcelona. It was very moving for them to see Sanel Cekik's picture on the screen and listen to him and to other Bosnian children.

3. Teachers and students in School-Gymnasium 710, Moscow joined the Barcelona schools on the Day of Solidarity. They sent this message to the children in the Bosnian camp via Barcelona and posted it on the gtp.earthconf.

Dear friends!

Teachers and students of school-gymnasium #710 in Moscow, Russia send you our best greetings. From radio, TV and newspaper reports all of us know about the events in your country. We are very much concerned about the situation. We sympathize with you. Please, mind that in this difficult hour you are not alone, you have many friends on our planet. Today, we have talked about your beautiful country, recited poems, thought about you and about the hard life you are living now. We don't want any war to happen and we hope, that very soon people all over the world will live in peace and friendship. Women and children will not cry; men will not fight. Please, be brave and don't lose your heart. We are sure that the smoke of war will disappear and peaceful sun will shine again above your country.

Your friends: students of the 7th class, and teachers Galina Zhuravskaya and Vera Rizhova

4. North Heights school, Rome, Georgia. The Global Thinking class at North Heights posted this report on May 21, 1993.

North Heights recently completed a project to help Camp Veli Joze.

We did three projects. One was a school dance. The way we raised money was we charged $1.00 per head. We also paid to see the teachers dance! The students were responsible for planning the details for the dance, for collecting money, and selling refreshments. We raised $156.74. The next thing we did was a charity softball game at the school during field day. We raised $99.00. We also put out money jars in local stores. We designed posters to tell the story of Veli Joze and Global Thinking to display in the businesses to encourage people to donate their money. One 5th grade student thought of the slogan "Your Change Will Change Camp Veli Joze" to put on the canisters. We haven't gotten the results from this yet. Messages from Narcis Vives about Camp Veli Joze, the sad message from Sanel Cekik, and the poem "I'd like to go alone" inspired us to try to do something to help the camp. Within two weeks, our teacher will be sending a check and some photos to Narcis Vives for the camp.

5. Melbourne Girls Grammar School, Australia posted a message on June 7, 1993.

Topic 157. The Bosnian Boy

Peg:mggs: Global Thinking Project

This poem is our reaction from the letter from Sanel Cekik who is a Bosnian boy who at the time was living at a refugee camp called Veli Joze and we hope through this poem that he and everyone else can see we care. Boy, in your room I heard youweeping,

Boy, in his room you saw himsleeping,

Then from his peace he wasawaking,

Only to a hell that today is creating.

Boy, with all the terror you must besinking,

I wonder how many lives they are

SHATTERING

The Veli Joze experience was considered by many students to be an important event in their lives. Brief reports written by students from schools in Australia, Russia and the United States at the end of the school year supported this assertion. As Springer noted, global thinking facilitates interactions and partnerships that allow students to experience the social nature of knowledge.

Fighters for the Environment.

The Oka River runs near the town of Pushchino, which is located about 100 km south of Moscow. Last October American and Russian students visited the river on several occasion carrying various measurement tools enabling them to conduct a series of tests to determine the river’s water quality. About 400 km northwest of Moscow, in the city of Yaroslavl, twenty American and Russian teenagers worked with their teachers to monitor the air by making measurements of particulates, ozone, temperature, humidity and other factors they thought would help determine the air’s quality. Similar environmental investigations were taking place in Moscow and St. Petersburg last October (Hassard & Kolb, 1996).

The GTP was awarded two grants from the United States Information Agency (USIA) through its Secondary School Linkages program that promotes exchanges of students and teachers between the United States and the New Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union. These grants are allowing face-to-face collaboration among students and teachers who have formerly been working on the GTP via the Internet.

The first exchange brought 50 Russian and 50 American secondary students and a team of two teachers per school for two, three-week exchanges during the academic year 1995 - 1996. The second grant will bring 100 students and 30 teachers together during the 1996 - 1997 academic year. The goal of the exchange is to promote communication and understanding between students and teachers through collaborative study, discussion, and action on local environmental problems. Using the GTP curriculum described earlier in the paper, students worked side-by-side in each others’ communities on environmental action projects of mutual concern.

The key objectives of the student exchange were:

1. To enhance students' abilities to monitor their local environments by providing training in specific monitoring and data collection and analysis techniques.

2. To introduce students to collaborative methods and strategies of inquiry and action-taking that can be used to address environmental problems in their respective communities.

3. To promote understanding between students in Georgia (USA) and Russia through in-depth discussion of each others' needs, difficulties, and points of view concerning local environmental problems.

4. To involve American and Russian students in hands-on environmental action projects in each others' communities.

5. To enhance an existing electronic community of practice through which relationships between American and Russian schools have been established and maintained.

Students from five Georgia schools and five Russian schools worked together on environmental action projects during the past school year. During the Americans’ three week stay in October 1995 they lived with Russian families and attended Russian schools while working on environmental monitoring and action projects which make up the Global Thinking Project curriculum. In March, 1996, the American students returned their friends’ hospitality when the Russian students visited Georgia. The exchange enabled 100 students to monitor ozone in Moscow, test the quality of water flowing in the Oka River near Pushchio and discuss ideas for waste disposal and recycling with Russian students and their families in Yaroslavl and St. Petersburg. Russian students had the opportunity to study the quality of the Tennessee River, explore marshes on the coast near Savannah, and study the quality of the air in and around Atlanta.

Environmental Research in Russia.

The five groups of American and Russian students conducted environmental research projects in and around the Russian school sites. In their investigations, students do the work of real scientists, utilizing important data they, themselves have collected and using this information draw their own conclusions. For the students, the environment and its problems are primary concerns, and during the exchange American and Russian students identified their most ardent environmental concerns (McIlveene, 1996). These included pollution, ozone depletion, extinction of living species, nuclear arms and testing of nuclear weapons, solid waste disposal, and overpopulation. At each site, teachers organized the students in collaborative teams consisting of American and Russian students. Choice of students’ environmental projects were made by students themselves through small group collaboration. Figure 5 gives a summary of the students environmental projects conducted in Russia.

Figure 5. Summary of the Research Projects Completed in Russia by American and Russian Student Teams, October - November, 1995

School Pair	Research Problem	Methods	Data	Results
Bartlett - St. Petersburg 157	How does the quality of the water compare at different sites?	Tested water at different sites	Values for salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen	County water sites were cleaner than sites in city.
Dunwoody - Moscow 710	What is the quality of the air in Moscow?	Monitored air daily at different sites in Moscow	Values for temperature, particulates, ozone, wind speed & direction	Community needs to work together to make the air cleaner.
Lafayette - Pushchino 2	What is the quality of the air in Pushchino?	Monitored the air at different times daily for a week.	Values for temperature, particulates, ozone, wind speed & direction	Air in Pushchino was very clean.
Ridgeland - Moscow 91	What is the quality of the air in Moscow?	Monitored the air at different times daily for a week.	Values for temperature, particulates, ozone, wind speed & direction	Not enough data to make conclusion.
Salem - Yaroslavl 22	How does the quality of the air in Yaroslavl compare with the air quality in St. Petersburg?	Monitored the air in both cities at the same time, twice a day.	Values for temperature, particulates, ozone, wind speed & direction	Ozone levels were higher in Yaroslavl than in St. Petersburg.

The American students’ three week stay in Russia culminated in an Environmental Summit held in a hotel in Moscow in early November, 1995 and attended by all 100 Russian and American students and their teachers. Students built exhibits of their research projects, shared the results of their environmental research, reflected on their experiences during the exchange and made plans for further work. Using their poster reports, American and Russian student groups were given the opportunity to discuss the results of their work with other student groups, with 20 Russian environmental educators who attended the summit, plus the principals of the various schools and Vasily Davidov, vice president of the Russian Academy of Education.

Sharing ideas with each other, presenting their ideas to adults, and reflecting on the experience led the students to make agreements describing how they would work together during the interim period prior to the visit of the Russian students and teachers to the Georgia in March. Students groups wrote charters describing how they would collaborate over the ensuing months. Figure 6 shows one example.

Figure 6. A Charter Written at the Global Summit in Moscow.

• Keep communication by means of fax, e-mail or letters twice a month.
• Also personal and research communication.
• Continue testing water and ozone and sharing the results in our communication.
• Testing the same river in different places in the same community---Tennessee River/Moscow River.
• Testing air quality in homes, near industrial areas, and recreational areas.
• Test ozone on Wednesday afternoons every week at about 3:00 PM local time.
• Test the water in December once a week; School 91 will monitor snow.
• At our homes work on the creek water, fossil hunting, how we recycle.At our school towards the end of the stay, compare the information we gather and see how to take action.
• At our homes, visit the caves, falls, mountains and other environmental places

Simpsonwood Declarations---Being Socially Responsible. The 100 hundred American and Russian students who conducted environmental research together in Russia came together for a second time in five communities in the state of Georgia. They conducted environmental investigations in five American communities, and then came together at the end of the Russians stay for a second Environmental Summit. It was held at the Simpsonwood Conference Center, located 50 km north of Atlanta.

At the summit, students built elaborate displays summarizing one-year of work they had conducted in two different environments. They presented their results in front of an audience of peers, parents, university professors, and the public. Students also reflected on their vision of a citizen in the context of what they had learned over the past year. Working in school pairs with their teachers, these young students wrote statements of their beliefs about the state of the environment and principles for future action. Their environmental statements became known as the Simpsonwood Declarations. For example, students from Puschino, Russia and Lafayette, Georgia wrote, in part:

"We believe that nature is very fragile---a chain that consists of many items. If you destroy one item, the chain would be broken. Most environmental problems stem from overpopulation. We believe that education (knowledge and awareness), participation (recycle, conserve, and organize), and a responsible attitude (every individual does their part) are needed."

This kind of work appears to help students gain a better insight into who they are, and deeper understanding of their own local environment, and the development of an attitude of a concerned yet active citizen. The inclusion of environmental education programs into schools based on the principles of global thinking is a challenge for educators in all countries. A whole-earth agenda of global concerns faces the citizenry of the world, and students, as fighters for the environment, and as future citizens, need to be empowered to deal with them.

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