Global Awareness Instruction

This lesson was designed as a way for students to learn about other cultures by conducting research while connecting with students around the world. Students will improve their writing and reading skills by participating in iEARN’s The Teddy Bear Project. “This project aims to foster tolerance and understanding of cultures other than your own. After teachers register, the facilitator matches you with a partner class. Once paired, classes send each other a Teddy Bear or other soft toy by airmail through the normal postal system.  The bear sends home diary messages by email or through the iEARN Teddy Bear Forum at least once a week. The students write the diary messages as if they are the visiting bear describing its experiences in the new culture.” The essential question for this lesson is How are people and places alike and different? 

I chose iEARN’s Teddy Bear Project because I thought it was a really fun activity that would allow my students to connect with students around the world and get to know them on a personal basis. Simply by exchanging teddy bears, my students would have to think about their own culture to find a bear that represents our way of life and we could analyze the bear that was sent to us to grasp their culture. I also liked the idea of writing weekly emails to our partner country because it would allow my students to get to know their class on a personal level. I also liked the idea of going through iEARN because I felt safer connecting with another classroom knowing that they made a safe match.

This lesson is considered global awareness because my students will be learning about students from another part of the world and they will be learning about us. My hope is that the class will form a long-time bond with the partner class and we will continue to communicate globally as the years go on.

**Side Note - I accidentally left this as a comment vs. a discussion thread so I wanted to re-post