 he Beacon International Neighborhoods Project has as its goal linking together fourth grades in four schools, each located in a different part of the world. A grant from the Department of Education of New York State to the South Avenue School in Beacon, New York, has helped initiate the project this fall.
"International Neighborhood" students will work together on the Web and in hands-on, minds-on explorations of issues in sustainability. Topics are matched to key state and national science standards, and include activities related to the environment, energy resources, neighborhood design and transportation. The goal of the project is to transform one's neighborhood into a neighborhood of the future, linked with other neighborhoods in an international network.
Beacon International Neighborhoods will use materials developed by the Education for a Sustainable Future (ESF) project at The Concord Consortium (see page 16). In addition, Concord Consortium staff will work with Beacon teachers to develop activities for use with temperature, light and other probes.
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The project will be using Alan and Michelle Shaw's "Connecting Up Villages" software, which provides email, conferencing, a shared calendar, chat, and many other features that support community collaboration. The project will also use TERC's CLEO for student investigations.
At the end of the year, after exploring their neighborhood resources, students will build a physical model of their "neighborhoods of the future," a model which will feature energy saving houses and vehicles. There will also be a web-based model of all the neighborhoods.
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