Global Issue Project

One of the main responsibilities for juniors in the Global Studies Program is to complete the Global Issue Project.  This project highlights a global topic or problem and connects to the Global Studies themes and skills. Completing this assignment involves choosing a topic, conducting research, picking and designing a product, and showcasing the final product on your website. For my project, I choose the topic of education inequality and illiteracy, focusing on four countries around the world: the United States, Niger, Finland, and Brazil. These countries were specifically chosen to showcase a wide range of illiteracy rates, with Finland having the lowest and Niger having the highest. I then selected Brazil because I have a personal connection here and the United States, which acts as a point of comparison to what many people are familar with.

 

I chose this topic because I am very passionate about reading and I saw a strong connection to many of the Global Studies themes, specifically human rights. I believe that education is a human right that everyone, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status, should be able to benefit from. This topic also plays into the idea of globalization, because what is taught in different schools is directly affected by the ways that other cultures and ideas have been spread in the past. 

 

I used Canva to make an infographic that presents my research, with sections of general information, as well as individual pages for each country. While doing research, I focused on the education systems of these countries, what factors contribute to their illiteracy rates, and in what ways the government is helping to lower illiteracy rates.