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During each school holiday, students and staff at the American School of Doha (ASD) head out across the globe to further the school’s aim of empowering members so as to become positive, active, global citizens.
The Eid Al Adha break was no different, as students and teachers set out to learn about global issues affecting our planet and try and seek solutions to make our planet a better place.
ASD is currently revamping its service-learning programme into what they call learning service opportunity, which is reflected in its overseas travel programme.
As opposed to service-learning, students are encouraged to learn about global issues and to investigate non-governmental organisations (NG Os) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes that address these issues. And finally, it evaluates their efforts through a critical lens.
As opposed to traditional service trips, the emphasis is on on-site training with focus on the tangible outcome, whether it is the constructing of a building or data collection.
According to the philosophy of ASD’s learning-service programme, the global citizens must be taught in a way that they receive active as well as reflective experience in their teaching so as to maximise the learning output.
In the words of IB CAS Coordinator Chi-Yan Shang, “Learning-service has to go curricular. School service trips provide valuable learning opportunities that must be delivered to them as such. These trips can be used as teaching tools to show students an obvious relation that exists between what they learn in their classrooms and how that knowledge can be applied in the real world to solve real time problems.
“Be it environmental conservation, gender equality, access to education or poverty eradication, they can be tackled methodically in a professional way, by connecting the classroom training with the real world. In that light, all our learning service trips are aligned to one of the United Nations sustainable development goals.” Fourteen students led by ASD teachers Lisa Bastedo, Merouane Aouinati and Lychelle Bruski worked with biologists from the Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme (Mwsrp), a UK NG O that works to monitor the whale shark population in the South Ari Marine Protected Area. Students spent time in the water, helping document whale shark markings to help identify individual sharks to help in their census. Students were also given an in depth familiarisation with the working of the grassroots NG O like the Mwsrp and the history behind their conception.
In another trip, a group of 10 students led by Chi-Yan Shang and Diane Caristo travelled to Laos to learn about elephant conservation at the Elephant Conservation Center (ECC) in Xayaboury. The ECC works to help rehabilitate elephants that were previously used in the logging or tourist industries.
It also works to educate people about the issues related to the management of elephants which are no longer employed into service by the industry. A sobering fact that ASD students learned was that conservation centres were needed to help humanely train elephants to coexist with humans.
Most places in the world where animal concentrations are found, such as those seen in Laos, there are simply not enough forests left to relocate all elephants that have been abandoned by the logging industry.
Students were given a chance to see the elephant-breeding project inside the ECC, where they learned about the best practices followed in elephant management through a breeding programme that helps raise elephant numbers.
One of the cornerstones of the ECC is to form a support system for elephant mahouts (traditional elephant keepers) by giving them a salary and housing when their elephants become pregnant. This helps them financially to rear the elephant calves, which is a costly affair, thus, increasing their population.
Another group of 17 students led by teachers Linda Hoiseth, Robb Hoiseth and Maria Manacheril went to Nepal. This team worked with a social organisation by the name Himalayan Voluntourism, dealing with the issue of education in the developing world. In Nepal, these students learned about NG O projects that empower and educate women and girls and spent their time working with these projects in local schools.
The Nepal trip was sponsored by ASD’s chapter of Girl Up! which is an initiative by the United Nations to help support and further the status of female children in the developing world.
The next round of learning service trips is bound for Tanzania to work at ASD’s adopted school in Tanzania, and Spain, to learn about sustainable living and eco-housing, and again to Laos, to learn about sustainable tourism to empower communities.
The Eid Al Adha break was no different, as students and teachers set out to learn about global issues affecting our planet and try and seek solutions to make our planet a better place.
ASD is currently revamping its service-learning programme into what they call learning service opportunity, which is reflected in its overseas travel programme.
As opposed to service-learning, students are encouraged to learn about global issues and to investigate non-governmental organisations (NG Os) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes that address these issues. And finally, it evaluates their efforts through a critical lens.
As opposed to traditional service trips, the emphasis is on on-site training with focus on the tangible outcome, whether it is the constructing of a building or data collection.
According to the philosophy of ASD’s learning-service programme, the global citizens must be taught in a way that they receive active as well as reflective experience in their teaching so as to maximise the learning output.
In the words of IB CAS Coordinator Chi-Yan Shang, “Learning-service has to go curricular. School service trips provide valuable learning opportunities that must be delivered to them as such. These trips can be used as teaching tools to show students an obvious relation that exists between what they learn in their classrooms and how that knowledge can be applied in the real world to solve real time problems.
“Be it environmental conservation, gender equality, access to education or poverty eradication, they can be tackled methodically in a professional way, by connecting the classroom training with the real world. In that light, all our learning service trips are aligned to one of the United Nations sustainable development goals.” Fourteen students led by ASD teachers Lisa Bastedo, Merouane Aouinati and Lychelle Bruski worked with biologists from the Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme (Mwsrp), a UK NG O that works to monitor the whale shark population in the South Ari Marine Protected Area. Students spent time in the water, helping document whale shark markings to help identify individual sharks to help in their census. Students were also given an in depth familiarisation with the working of the grassroots NG O like the Mwsrp and the history behind their conception.
In another trip, a group of 10 students led by Chi-Yan Shang and Diane Caristo travelled to Laos to learn about elephant conservation at the Elephant Conservation Center (ECC) in Xayaboury. The ECC works to help rehabilitate elephants that were previously used in the logging or tourist industries.
It also works to educate people about the issues related to the management of elephants which are no longer employed into service by the industry. A sobering fact that ASD students learned was that conservation centres were needed to help humanely train elephants to coexist with humans.
Most places in the world where animal concentrations are found, such as those seen in Laos, there are simply not enough forests left to relocate all elephants that have been abandoned by the logging industry.
Students were given a chance to see the elephant-breeding project inside the ECC, where they learned about the best practices followed in elephant management through a breeding programme that helps raise elephant numbers.
One of the cornerstones of the ECC is to form a support system for elephant mahouts (traditional elephant keepers) by giving them a salary and housing when their elephants become pregnant. This helps them financially to rear the elephant calves, which is a costly affair, thus, increasing their population.
Another group of 17 students led by teachers Linda Hoiseth, Robb Hoiseth and Maria Manacheril went to Nepal. This team worked with a social organisation by the name Himalayan Voluntourism, dealing with the issue of education in the developing world. In Nepal, these students learned about NG O projects that empower and educate women and girls and spent their time working with these projects in local schools.
The Nepal trip was sponsored by ASD’s chapter of Girl Up! which is an initiative by the United Nations to help support and further the status of female children in the developing world.
The next round of learning service trips is bound for Tanzania to work at ASD’s adopted school in Tanzania, and Spain, to learn about sustainable living and eco-housing, and again to Laos, to learn about sustainable tourism to empower communities.
