LOCAL ↔ GLOBAL LEARNING
Summit's Global Scholars Program
Summit is committed to providing high school students with educational travel opportunities that further our mission of “engaging students in learning experiences that stimulate discovery, inspire excellence, and nurture a positive influence in an ever-changing world.” As a member of the Teton Science Schools Place Network, Summit’s educational experience is founded on six educational principles, including Local to Global Learning.
At its core, global learning is about facilitating educational experiences that allow students to appreciate diverse perspectives, understand the connections they have to the wider world, and take action on issues that matter to them and the wider world (source).
Why is it important?
What is Local↔Global Learning?
In the following excerpt from “Why Global Education Matters,”
Dr. Ariel Tichnor-Wagner highlights the benefits of global education:
Student engagement: When students learn content through authentic tasks and real-world experiences, they are more likely to engage, which in turn leads to higher attendance and achievement.
College and career readiness: Employers today are eager to hire graduates with cross-cultural skills that allow them to work in diverse teams and with clients all over the world. By providing students with opportunities to understand the wider world and the diversity of people, cultures, and perspectives in it, schools are also giving students a competitive edge in the marketplace.
Social-emotional learning: Global education helps develop self-awareness of one’s own identity, culture, beliefs and how those connect with the wider world, social awareness including empathy, perspective-taking, appreciating diversity, and respecting others, and relationship-building skills with diverse individuals and groups through effective communication and collaboration.
Student empowerment: Global learning enables students with agency to take purposeful action to improve their own lives and to positively influence the world around them.
Summit High is committed to taking learning beyond the traditional walls of the classroom...far beyond the walls of the classroom. At the beginning of their freshman year, Summit students investigate the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in Wyoming through first-hand observation and inquiry. Summit students are avid explorers: they hike the trails of Grand Teton National Park and the streets of Washington, D.C. to explore art and history museums.
Though Summit’s curated travel experiences are diverse in scope, they are unified in purpose: to offer students the ability to earn HS credit through travel opportunities that cultivate a global mindset. Summit’s Global Scholars program currently offers domestic trips, but looks forward to expanding to offer the international opportunities focused on language immersion, service-learning, and outdoor adventure.