Jonathan Peterson, ’03 and MS ’07, is leading a new initiative at Oshkosh West High School to expand students’ understanding of the world around them.

The second-annual Global Awareness Week offers high school students a chance to learn about various cultures through the eyes of people who know a country first-hand. Volunteer speakers, who represent communities throughout the area, will speak on such topics as “My Experience at Auschwitz” and hear from a climate change expert from UW Oshkosh.

Peterson, one of the first graduates of the UW Oshkosh Global Educator Certificate program also earned a master’s in education leadership in 2007. He has taken on other leadership roles at the high school as a freshman and sophomore core team leader, and was a steering committee member in developing an advisory period as part of OASD’s Smaller Learning Communities grant.

Peterson brought Global Awareness Week to West as an assignment for the Global Educators Certificate program to expose students to different cultures and experiences they may not get in the traditional classroom.

“The world is getting smaller everyday,” he said. “I hope this program gives the students a heads up on some of the changes the world will face in their lifetime.”

Topics of the seminars will include:

• Indonesia–experiences as an exchange student
• Dating and marriage in India–One woman’s experience
• Life in Belize and Central America
• Lebanon’s Green Line: From war to environmentalism
• Going to school and being a teen in the Phillippines
• Study abroad experiences in Pamplona, Spain
• Hmong history, including genocide and General Vao Pang
• Differences between American and Uzbek high schools

For more information or to volunteer for future events, contact Peterson at jonathan.peterson@oshkosh.k12.wi.us

For more information on UW Oshkosh’s Global Educator Certificate program, visit http://www.uwosh.edu/globaled/