Week 15 Blog

The first podcast I listened to was "The Edible Schoolyard." It was recorded by some students at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkley California. The teachers used a garden to teach the students about science and life skills. The students would work in the garden daily and were eventually able to harvest their crop and cook what they had grown. They learned about photosynthesis, the life cycles of the plants and water cycles.

The second podcast I listened to was "A Night in the Global Village." This was my favorite of the two podcasts. Students and their teachers from the Rocky Mountain School of Expenditionary Learning in Perryville, Arkansas went to the Heifer Ranch. The Global Gateway Program had set up different 'areas' at the ranch resembling different parts of the world - Thailand, Zambia and other countries - affected by poverty and hunger. The teachers and students were assigned and taken to an area and 'left there', overnight, with very little resources or supplies. They got a taste of what it was like to live as the people in those countries for just a few hours.

Both podcasts depicted hands-on learning. In the first podcast, the students got to enjoy the fruits of their labors. In the second podcast, the students - and teachers - had to learn to maximize the use of their limited resources. They also experienced something that will impact them for the rest of their lives.

I'll never forget my second trip to the Bahamas. I'd gone the first time when I was five and all I can remember was swimming and playing with the Bahamian kids. I think my grandfather didn't show me the hidden side of the Bahamas because I was little. I was fifteen when I went back. The beauty of the island and the towering hotels was still just as beautiful as I remembered. But then I was shown what was behind all of that... the slums, people struggling to put food on the tables. It really opened my eyes to the fact that things are not always what they appear to be. I once teased my grandfather about being a missionary to the Bahamas. I never teased him again after that trip. I got a major shock of reality.