Edutopia

In the podcast A Night in the Global Village teachers and students took part in an overnight "adventure" where they had to live like people in less fortunate countries do. I have never seen anything like the "camp" that was in this video podcast. I think that it is an amazing program that can be utilized to help show students the living conditions of other people. I remember one day in my 11th grade American History class the teacher shut off and blocked all of the lights, locked all of the doors, turned the heat way up, and put all of us students in the middle of the classroom with all of the desks around us. We were all on top of each other and it was stifling. My teacher did this exercises to help us to experience what it was like to be a captured person on a slave ship. These ideas are wonderful ideas to both get students involved and to help them to understand situations that they have not been exposed to!
I also watched the podcast The Edible Schoolyard where students learn to care for nature. In this podcast the students spent the first hour of their day planting plants and learning to grow things. I believe that this is a good program to employ because it teaches students responsibility and how to care for the planet. I wish that there was a program like this when I was in school! It is my thought that this program would be useful in any school and I hope that maybe one day I will be in a school with one of these programs!