International Programs
Partners approach Carver with opportunities such as NicaPhoto and Learning Everywhere described below.
Sometimes Carver responds to specific opportunities such as providing a financial scholarship for a student to participate in cross-cultural experiences such as one of our students who traveled to Japan through a program sponsored by the Center for Global Studies described below.
Carver students have been given international experiences through the initiative called WeR1Voice founded by Morris Pleasure, a world-renowned musician. Experiences have ranged from being invited to promote the Ghana National Museum on Slavery and Freedom to introducing Carver students via social media and Skype to youth in Tanzania.
NicaPhoto
From 2011 to 2015, Carver high school students partnered with NicaPhoto to learn alongside their peers in Sonrisa de Dios (Smile of God), one of the poorest barrios in Nagarote, Nicaragua. The students shared photography, poetry, and stories via Skype and other digital means. A coffee table book based on this cultural exchange was published in 2014. Our students traveled to Nicaragua to help the students there establish this organic garden by which the young people learn about growing their own food, organic gardening, and healthy eating.
The Conference on Mobile Position Awareness Systems and Solutions (COMPASS) convened over 80 museum staff, technology developers, cyberlearning scientists, STEM informal learning specialists, and others interested in indoor location-aware mobile systems to flesh out these ideas and more.
Learning Everywhere
in 2018, Concord Consortium invited Carver to participate in Learning Everywhere, a pilot program with partnering science museums in the UK, France, and throughout the US. Carver helped to test the project's concepts in Norwalk Public Schools and at the Connecticut Science Center.
Imagine being guided by a buzz on your smartwatch, suggesting you try a different path in the museum you’re visiting. Or the mobile device that knows your favorite types of activities nudging you to move outside your comfort zone and explore new genres of art or recommending the next curiosity to examine. That is what Learning Everywhere is about.
Center for Global Studies
Some Carver students attend the Center for Global Studies, a magnet school within Brien McMahon High School. Nearly 300 students learn Arabic, Chinese or Japanese, study the cultures and history of Asia or the Middle East, read literature from around the world, and Carver helps some of its students with meeting the expense of traveling on two-week Study Tours to broaden their understanding of the world. CGS has a large community room for cultural events and a kitchen where students cook international foods. Students come for as little as one year but many stay for their entire high school career. They study language, literature and history in the CGS, and they enroll in math, science, gym, health, and other electives in Brien McMahon HS. Our students' intellectual energy and curiosity create a vibrant sense of community in the Center for Global Studies.