A global community within California

BVH participates in the Global Edge California Education Forum

Adrian Pereira, Staff Writer|December 30, 2021

Eiffel Sunga

To attend the California Global Education Forum, participants need to have filled out a google form because the event was all virtual.

The week of Nov. 15 to Nov. 19, a week-long global scholars (GS) virtual meeting occurred called the Global Edge California Global Education Forum (GECG). The Global Scholars Program aims to develop global competence, helping students further their knowledge of the world. Hosted by the California Global Education Project, a group of educators that runs the GS program and class, the California Global Education project is a unique project that works with K-12 students and is interdisciplinary. The project includes projects in the math, science and literature subjects.

The event has long been postponed since the start of this program due to COVID-19 restrictions. GS and English 9 teacher Gina Vattuone spoke at the event about the global scholars club’s path to creation, its content and what their students are interested in learning about.

“It’s been the [GECG organizer’s] dream to put on an actual physical gathering, but COVID-19 obviously has derailed those plans for now. And so they decided to put on a virtual gathering,” Vattuone said.

Another part of the GS coursework and content focus is centralized on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG). They use several different methods to combine these goals and their coursework.  

“When [students are] doing their immigration migration unit, we’re reading nonfiction, or we’re reading fiction books about immigration migration,” Vattuone said. “This year, I switched it up a little and we’re doing readings of nonfiction books.” 

She goes on to further describe the book her students are reading this semester titled World In The Grain. This book grapples with the issue of running out of a type of sand needed for life which ties in with the UNSDG goals.

Junior Kailea Vickers was previously an officer in GS who attended the GECG. She spoke about how geographic skills and global competence combined help students learn their place in the world. According to Vickers, these skills can help students better prepare for the world ahead and can help students become more aware of problems in the world. 

“[Being in Global Scholars] resulted in me being much more socially and globally aware. I learned [about] accountability and how to be a more responsible person,” Vickers said.

An additional speaker was junior Valeria Valencia who spoke about the same subject as Vickers. Similar to Vickers, she also learned important skills such as global and social awareness and accountability. 

“You learn so much more about the world around you plus, you will have amazing teachers leading you through this,” Valencia states. “They helped me so much and made me believe in myself.”