Global Communities

Through the social sciences, students develop the knowledge and skills to enable them to:
- Better understand, participate in, and contribute to the local, national, and global communities in which they live and work; engage critically with societal issues; and evaluate the sustainability of alternative social, economic, political and environmental practices. 
           -The New Zealand Curriculum

Local Participation & Global Confidence - Being part of a Global Community at Edgecumbe College

Picture

Globalisation is a series of processes that have caused human activities to become more interconnected and interdependent across the world. The problems of the world have become more significant locally. In the Year 10 Te Ao Whanui programme we are acquiring relevant knowledge, skills and values which enable us to participate and act in shaping our preferred future for a more peaceful, equitable, just and ecologically sustainable world.
The image shows Heather, Bailey, Dannii and Jessica participating in a phone-conference with Jace Hobbs, our link with the Burmese refugee children with whom we are developing online e-pal relationships. In this way, we not only learn about a real social issue we also hear first-hand from the people who are most affected by the situation; the children themselves. Direct communication means we can be part of the solution and help these children by designing eduational tools to help them learn the English language, which is what they have requested from us. They would also benefit from having old laptop computers so, if you know of a source of these, tell us and Jace will help us send them to the refugee school and arrange for someone to fix them for use by the students.
This course is about learning about a social issue, trying to make a difference locally, then finding resources and people to make it global. Tonisha

We are learning about the environment and social issues so we can come up with ideas that can help everyone in need. Arapeta

This is a class where we learn about what happens in the world and we come up with some ways of making it better and stronger. We choose a social topic that we are interested in, not the teacher placing a topic in front of us and telling us what to do. We make the choice. Maea

TakingITGlobal is a great site to get involved with and it helps me understand that many people around the world are as interested in the Earth as I am. Marie

Check us out on http://centre4.core-ed.net/modules/page/page.php?space_key=382&module_key=82197&link_key=55698&group_key=0