Bathurst High Students and Global Awareness

Posted: October 28, 2013

Several high schools in Anglophone North School District have teacher initiated programs that help students “see over the horizon” and further their understanding of developmental education. For instance a  number of students at Bathurst High School (BHS) have an opportunity this year to become more aware of the living conditions of people in disadvantaged countries and to do something about it. In this way they are enhancing their roles as “global citizens”, considered to be an important aspect of 21st Century Learning.      Cynthia Decoste, the Art teacher at Bathurst High School, has undertaken another initiative in conjunction with Students Rebuild™ raising money for safe, clean drinking water in Tanzania. Her goal is to have students at BHS create paper beads to send to the Students Rebuild™ program. If students world-wide create a sufficient number, the Bezos Family Foundation™ will donate a half million dollars to support the construction of 43 separate water sites in Tanzania. A bracelet of 20 beads allows one person clean water. Cynthia hopes to create 5 000 beads. This is her second endeavor with Students Rebuild™. Two years ago, she created “bones” to raise money for victims of the genocides in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.     BHS teachers Sandra Black and John Cleland are heading up a year long sustainable development project with a girls’ secondary school in Doha, Qatar. The students at BHS will be conducting five video conferences throughout the year and have access to their own internet network site to facilitate posting blogs and emailing their counterparts in Doha. This site also allows other teams from Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and New Orleans to interact with BHS students and exchange ideas and information in solving sustainable development problems. The 11 BHS students are the only such participants from Canada and are having a rather unique experience. “The intrinsic benefits from exchanges such as these are immeasurable” states Mr. Cleland.