About school themes

Each year, News-Decoder’s partner schools choose a global theme that they would like their students to focus on throughout the year. Students conduct local research and reporting on topics within that theme and present their findings in the school’s global webinar, which is co-hosted by students from another one of our partner schools. Students also showcase their findings in multimedia content that is ultimately published on News-Decoder’s site.

Global themes enable our partners to dive into issues that are important to their school, students and community — but also the world. For example, a school may choose to have their students focus on an issue like waste or income inequality or xenophobia or gender violence. These issues manifest themselves in unique, local ways, but are also topics of global importance, affecting people in all parts of the world. The global webinar, which is co-hosted by a school from another part of the world, provides students with a unique opportunity to compare and contrast how global issues play out in different parts of the world.

Importantly, themes are not meant to be a straightjacket on schools: we encourage faculty and students to explore topics outside of their school’s theme within their classes, clubs and independent projects.

Our 2019-20 themes

Our 2019-20 educational program is organized around themes relating to the following global issues: Truth & Fiction, Crime & Punishment, War & Peace, Poverty & Wealth, Health & Wellness, Technology, Discovery, Identity, Walls & Bridges, Environment and Individual & Society.