Curriculum, learning and teaching
ZIS students interview the local sheikh in Zawiya Ahansal, a remote valley in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, about the lack of clean drinking water in his community.
Applying economic theories to the real world Jason Welker shares the outcomes of an elective course at Zurich International School This year marked the third iteration of an elective course offered to Zurich International School (ZIS) students in grades 10, 11 and 12: Environmental Economics. The course was designed to provide students with the opportunity to learn about real world applications and examples of economic theories in relation to the environmental challenges facing society today. For roughly half of the time in the course students engage in project-based learning (PBL), a way of learning that allows them to work in teams investigating, educating one another and the community, and creating action plans around real world topics that interest them. This year the class of 18 students worked in teams of four or five to develop projects around four real world environmental issues: • Fairtrade as a strategy for sustainable human development • carbon offsetting as a means of reducing an organization’s carbon footprint Spring
Autumn |
| 2016
• recycling and waste management in Switzerland • clean drinking water in the developing world Projects unfolded in three phases throughout the year, in each of which students had to meet concrete deadlines and produce evidence of their learning to the teacher, classmates and the community. Starting with “Investigation”, in which students conducted formal research on their topic and prepared a 15 minute presentation to educate their classmates, projects moved onto the “Awareness” and “Action” phases, in which students taught a lesson on their topics to ZIS lower school classes, and finally organized and enacted a project in or beyond the ZIS community to make a meaningful social impact in the area of their chosen issue. This year’s projects culminated in several successful actions in and beyond the ZIS community, including the following. • The Fairtrade team worked with the supplier of coffee to our faculty kitchens to investigate the possibility
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