Student as Global Citizen

App: Kids World Cultures

Knowledge
As children begin to experience empathy and kindness with their classroom communities, it is important to look outward into the growing world's community so that they are able to experience what it is like being a global citizen. Children learn about being global citizens by choosing to contribute to making their community a better place. This develops leadership and communication skills, along with skills that help children reflect as they share, compare and improve upon ideas in a collaborative way. The appreciation built amongst students allows them to develop an appreciation for the earth and the world we live in.
While many aspects of global citizenship begin with the local community, I wanted to take a deeper looking into a unit that is planned for the winter which is "Around the World". The children begin to travel and experience different customs, foods and animals located in those areas. What I wanted to do is change the curriculum to also incorporate other global connections including cultures, foods, attire, buildings and resemblance. This added history based approach will allow students to experience not like a surface level or similarities and differences but begin to understand that people around the world have different customs, cultures and ways of life.
We currently use the book Children Just Like Me (linked below). It shows a child of like age in their custom attire, how they write their name, and other facts about themselves that may be similar or different than those of my students.

YouTube: Children Just Like Me

Application
In an attempt to create a link from our classroom to the world around us (that also is appropriate for the young two year old children) I found the app, Kids World Cultures. This app is free to explore Europe and carries a $4.99 charge for other countries. This gives you a chance to play around on the app and its features and see if it is something that could work in your classroom. This kid friendly app has an alien as its leader with games and video recordings for each country in it's passport. There were two selections that seemed appropriate for exploring each country and cultures while the others seemed to be more geared towards gaming and busy activities. There were easy voice activated options for the children who cannot read to participate. It does need teacher supervision for preschool aged children or can be explored on a large TV at group time.

Reflection
This is not an app that independently makes students aware of global citizenship, but does broaden their knowledge that their is a bigger world around us to explore and show compassion for. It can be a great beginning app to open the door for deeper learning and conversations about cultures and communities outside of our own. There are some great apps like PenPal, or Touchable Earth that are more child friendly, however this app is a great transition between home and school. We found last time that even showing YouTube videos of different children explaining their attire and holiday traditions made a bigger impact to the curriculum and an extention to their learning! While global citizenship is not only about exposing children to other cultures and different parts of the world, it does open up their mind to people and communities other than their own.