Jiaming sat across from one of his favorite clients, Mrs. Seng. His partner, Siti, joined them by computer conferencing. Today’s discussion was focused on web advertising for Mrs. Seng’s new line of instantaneous gas water heaters.

While Jiaming returned to his office, Siti decided to Google an unfamiliar term used during the meeting. “Just what is a carbon footprint, “ she thought, “and what does it have to do with water heaters?”

Jiaming and Siti lived in the same neighborhood, but Siti preferred to work from home. She couldn’t imagine riding ten stations down the line every day like Jiaming.

“I wonder,” Siti said to herself, “if working from home makes a difference in my carbon footprint?”

Apple Talk

Choices

Stork migration map

The migration of the White Stork has 2 paths:

- an Eastern route via Turkey, the Middle East, the Nile Valley to reach East Africa and even South Africa- a Western route via Gibraltar to reach the North of Africa.White Storks from Switzerland migrate with the western stork populations via Gibraltar.

http://www.fr.ch/mhn/en/Stork/migration.htm

Case workshop at the University of Western Cape, South Afica for the International Union of Biological Scientists. (2009)

Case workshop at the National Institute for Education in Singapore addressing 21st Century Competencies..

Exploring cases, careers, and collaboration in the Plant IT Project with the Botanical Society of America in a workshop at Texas A&M. (2010)

Chia

Quinoa

Out of the Frying Pan

Paul’s Puzzle

Donor’s Dilemma

Cases can emphasize global connections by:

•requiring the use of both US and non-US resources•reinforcing the extended impact of “local” issues•using characters or settings that are outside the range of your majority learners’ experience•selecting data that is accessible in spite of language barriers•decision-making that reflects scientific reasoning (evidence-based choices) accounts for global contexts•generating a need to explore social and political effects as part of addressing the issue•selecting online tools that utilize global data

How Stories Teach: Writing Case Studies to Internationalize Science Education Keynote at the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2012) featured a case exploring the source of the West Nile Virus first observed in the US in 1999.

Interactive access to pollen counts in Japan provided Texas High school teachers with data for the classroom as well as a bit of ecohistory on the impacts of the post-WWII planting of cedars.

Building a model of a solar water collector using empty liter bottles as part of a case experience in Singapore..

Fruit exports from South Africa are examined using online data including water footprints as well as hands on data collection.

Rising Co2 production in Singapore has initiated the development of government resources such as the Carbon Calculator that enables individuals to simulate the carbon production associated with their energy choices.

Gapminder image

Pollen Bot Data image

The Salty Sea