Global Service Learning Research Articles

Establishing Global Service Learning Courses

Global service-learning courses have the potential to help political scientists achieve multiple teaching goals and there is a strong desire among institutions to develop such programs. What might prevent a political scientist from developing a global service-learning course? This paper examines the challenges that a political scientist might find when working with a foreign local population in establishing a global service learning course on politics. The paper (and presentation) first turns to the literature on global service-learning to see if there is an extant prescription for immersing American students in a foreign environment for the purposes of service-learning. Next, it draws on the dual experiences of the author in establishing global service-learning courses since 2005—one successful, the other replete with failures but ultimately salvaged. The paper concludes that (1) there are unusual challenges for politics-specific global service-learning courses and (2) such undertakings require broad and deep local cooperation, which is sometimes difficult to cultivate under the best of conditions.

Global Service Learning through Green Mapping Tourism Development in the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest

Paraty Green Map is a global social responsibility service learning project that promotes sustainable tourism development in the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest. This project is based on the development of public-private partnerships including universities, the businesses, citizens, and local governments in the United States and Brazil and the United Nations. Paraty Green Map is a project which incorporates “high technology” in the form of web based information sharing and collaboration and “high touch” involving person to person interviews and collaborations within the local community in Paraty, Brazil. The purpose of this project is to reorient tourism activity to those locations that support the local community, maintain ecological integrity, and develop cultural heritage. Students and faculty developed a Green Map Survey instrument; interviewed citizens to learn of the cultural and ecological history; documented sustainable local businesses; and collaboratively designed web pages and an interactive map on the World Wide Web featuring those locations meeting the criteria of being sustainable. Students were able to increase their understanding of international sustainability issues and the challenges and opportunities of working in international partnerships. The outcomes of this project are: 1) student learning through active service in the community and 2) use of technology for the promotion of sustainable tourism practices in Paraty, Brazil.