Think Locally, Act Globally!
Linking Local and Global Communities
Through Democracy and Environment

T his module focuses on two geographic themes: (1) scale and (2) relations of humans to each other and to their environments. The module introduces students to the communities and segments of communities that constitute our world, and to the linkages that exist among communities at different levels. The linkages are through governance, economy, environment, technology, and culture. A central question is how communities respond to global change.

Each unit is focuses on a particular scale. The first considers the concept of community and encourages students' critical understanding of the local community in which they live. In addition, it asks students to assess their basic assumptions about U.S.-style democracy.

The second unit moves to the national scale and analyzes the global linkages between the United States and other communities in the world. As the focal point moves from the local to the nation and the world, students begin to see how they are personally connected to larger entities than their immediate social environments. They understand how the "choices" made in one country often have both positive and negative effects on other international communities and the global environment. Students are thus introduced to a new type of citizenship: global citizenship. Readings on the global economy and free trade demonstrate how national borders are crumbling in some respects and how the concept of the nation state may soon become archaic.

The third unit treats the supranational scale. It confronts students with a variety of "voices" struggling to be heard in the world: those embracing the global economy and an international culture, those adapting to them in varying ways, and those rejecting both because they see their resources being exploited by mulitinational corporations whom they consider the new colonizers of the world. If there is truly a global citizenry, shouldn't all resources, human and natural, be protected under a universal democracy? Or should U.S. citizens participate in the global community merely to the extent that something benefits their own self-interest? Activities in this unit focus on understanding how a variety of globally active organizations affect our daily lives.

The final unit examines the world as an independent partnership in which all partners depend on a healthy global ecological and social environment. At the end of this module, students should be able to address such issues as: How does a democracy deal with global change? How do people cause the world to change? What are the driving forces behind this change? What kind of a future will such changes produce? What are some of the alternative visions?

The module's activities include reading critically, writing essays, interpreting documents and maps, making sense of statistical information, confronting values, and weighing costs and benefits.