Activity Objective

The goal of Global Partners Junior OVERVIEW: Implementing an Integrated Literacy Approach (Virtual Tour) is to provide a summary of a complex, cross-curricular program, integrating social studies, science, math and literacy.  The focus on urban sustainability inspires students to think critically about sustainability issues both locally and internationally by connecting with classrooms abroad. Students post their projects, reflections, ideas, or questions online for discussion with cities around the world.

The curriculum helps students understand factors that contribute to creating a sustainable environment.  They attempt to influence the community to reduce their impact on the environment through the use of letter writing and persuasive advertisements. As a culminating activity, students redesign their own school to make it more sustainable, creating a 3-D model of their design accompanied by a one-page written explanation.

Quick Tips

Additional Comments:

- The wide range of cities connected to the Global Partners project provides an opportunity to choose cities of special interest to your students. This can be done collaboratively through rich classroom discussion and may even spark a debate.
- You'll find that many of your students will be connecting with these schools on their own time, so it's a good idea to touch base as a class to review some of the ongoing discussions. You never know where these discussions might take your lessons, so try and stay up-to-date. 
- You can make the 3-D model portion of the activity a group assignment, as this will inspire students to collaborate and discuss their thinking behind design choices.
- Ask students to collect a number of different scrap materials from home to bring in for the 3-D model. This will inspire students to be more creative in their designs and they will be happy to know that they're using recycled materials.