Twenty-eight Cohort teachers will be graduating with their Bachelor of Education degrees on December 18, 2014. Coordinator Mene Tauaa told Samoa News that an integral aspect of their degree work has been building classroom lessons and resources from the real world and the Territory’s island community.

In this effort, science, math and social studies lessons are drawn from information on local landmarks, marine and wildlife, and from environmental agencies such as the ASCC Land Grant and the AS National Park. Field trips are used to integrate classroom lessons with these real world resources.

Tauaa said lessons such as “I am Unique”, which drew on a historic tour of the Governor’s Mansion or “Our World, Our Ocean” that consisted of five field trips where students learned about the different ways they could help conserve ocean ecosystems, illustrate the program’s success at using elements found on the local scene to engender a learning environment.

The current UH cohort includes teachers from schools throughout the island, from ECE to elementary grades.