For the Teachers: Is this extra curricular, co curricular or both?

[Elizabeth Christie]

Hi there fellow teachers! I am wondering whether you are facilitating the students being here as part of a course, or a club or both? How did you select which students will attend? What requirements were made of the students to attend?

From my end, I teach World Issues, so it is partly co-curricular, but also I run a Movers and Shakers Club, and so it is also extra curricular. This group is comprised of past and present World Issues Students.

My classes organize a smaller scale conference in KL for local students which they aptly named : Hear us Out. My students' major project for World Issues is to create the workshops for this conference and to help me to plan the conference. It is also a fundraiser for NGOs who also provide keynote addresses and workshops.

To Mont Kiara and ISKL teachers, I hope to meet with you in the next few days, as our next conference Hear us Out II, quickly approaches on April 11th (Sat) and am wondering if the teams you brought here, might like a 2nd shot at it back home?

[John Stiles]

Elizabeth:

Students at Ruamrudee International School in Bangkok who are involved with issues are members of a club of two recently merged clubs: "Global Issues" and "SEEDS." The former worked toward engaging in strategies to confront issues, while the other was more involved with specifically ecological environmental improvement. Together we now have about 120 members. The club meets once a month, and its 5 committees also meet at least once a month. We are currently involved with co-sponsoring International Ozone Awareness Day on campus (16 September), working with others at the school, and co-sponsor UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) office in Bangkok. Check the RIS website for more details (www.rism.ac.th). Our officers and I plan to attend the GIN conference in Hong Kong next spring.

John Stiles, Club sponsor

[Roland Schmidt-Bellach]

I tried getting GIN goin last year here at UNIS (Hanoi) and one of the reasons we did not send stuents last year (I went and was thoroughly inspired) was that this activity ended up being one more thing added to a student's busy school day (especially for the engaged student). Out of last years teachers discussion of using GIN as an umbrella to unifyactivities, we have since linked most our community service and CAS activities with one or more Global Issue.Students will then form their groups based on the issue and use their CAS activitie(s) experiences and reflection to develop their workshop. In addition to participating in CAS, they also participate in a GIN group to get them ready for the coference. Not everyone in the GIN group is expected to go to the conference, but it is hoped that it will generate a number of workshops. The hope is that students will also feedback the GIN experiences (in developing te workshop and conference) to improve the CAS program. It is my understanding that a school can register as many students as they are registering and preparing workshops for. I have yet to find out this years group size as we are just getting our community service underway.next week.