Green Woods Charter School is beginning an exciting partnership with Escuela Futuro Verde, a bilingual school in Costa Rica! For the first time Green Woods students will make a personal connection with students in another country, learn more about each others environment, and then work together to take civic action based on a real environmental concern. This experience is sure to help our students, and the Escuela Futuro Verde students, better understand how we are all connected and part of a global community.

To begin this partnership, Ms. Farwell and our first graders will investigate our local ecosystem and community, while the first and second grade classes of Escuela Futuro Verde are doing the same. Then, through a writing project with their pen pals, they will compare how their environment and community are alike and how they are different. The fourth graders in Mr. Hoffman's class will simultaneously work on a watershed project with our Costa Rican cooperating school. Each month, the students will talk through Skype so they can meet each other face to face and compare their progress. Finally, Mrs. Geist and her fifth graders will work on identifying and solving an environmental problem in our community. Our fifth graders and Futuro Verde's fifth and sixth grade classes will then compare our different environmental problems and help each other find solutions.

We're very excited to get to know our Costa Rican friends at Escuela Futuro Verde! To learn more about our Costa Rican partner, visit www.futuro-verde.org