A multinational learning event based around the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan saw American Students and Teachers travel to Nagano to interact with their Japanese counterparts – for an immersive educational experience that also adapted early video conferencing technology to broaden the program’s scope to multiple schools back in the United States.
Nagano Olympics Teacher/Student Program
Learning Event at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan
Blue Ice International led a coalition of 6th grade students and teachers from across the United States (Kansas, Maryland, Massachucetts, Utah and Virginia) to Nagano, Japan for a joint learning experience with the students and faculty of Yamanouchi Elementary School.
Yamanouchi, the 1998 Olympic venue for the Giant Slalom and snowboarding events, provided the perfect setting for this cross cultural teaching/learning event and all the students in the Blue Ice Team were immersed in the culture and customs of Japan while staying in the homes of local families.
The American and Japanese teachers jointly created lesson plans that utilized snow and ice to convey a curriculum that combined science, math, geography, language and the visual arts.
The NASA Gddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, MD. USA) worked with Blue Ice International to connect the Yamanouchi event with select schools across the United States via a direct internet link. This enabled a truly global ‘real time’ interaction between the Blue Ice Team, with their new friends in Yamanouchi, and the students and teachers back in the United States.
Scope
- Snow + Ice Based Curriculum
- Hands-on learning experience
- Science, math, geography, language and visual arts
- Distance learning
- Remote sensing
Technology
- CU-SEE-ME video conferencing
HANDS ON SCIENCE
Environmental and Outdoor School Component
Numerous environmental and outdoor school organizations from all over Japan joined the Blue Ice International / Yamanouchi team to further enhance the learning experience with their specialized knowledge of snow and ice. Snow camps, the structure and growth of crystals, the origin and structure of the local mountains, satelite imaging and remote sensing were just a few of the topics integrated.
Global Connection through Technology
Early video conferencing technology pioneers educational connection between Japan and USA
Blue Ice International sought to develop and test ways to utilize the internet to effectively establish long term cross-cultural learning frameworks on a global scale. The Nagano Olympic Learning Event in February 1998 provided the ideal testing ground for stretching the educational frontiers through the use of CU-SEE-ME - an internet based teleconferencing technology.
