For the extracurricular sessions, our first session was about introducing students to different countries worldwide. We guided everyone to draw their own passports and share stories of different countries through multiple activities, such as word searches. The session went smoothly. I think this had to do with our careful planning and multiple practice trials for the first session. 

I was surprised that these students come from very different backgrounds. They came from various countries and migrated to different places. It was interesting to hear that one of the students had an experience living in Bahrain, a country I’ve only heard of from the world map and have known nearly nothing about before. His stories opened my eyes to the richness of his experiences, and I realized that education is truly a two-way exchange: while we teach, we also learn from the students. This mutual learning experience reinforces the idea that education is not just about delivering knowledge but also about fostering meaningful conversations and shared experiences.

I was very happy that the students cooperated well in the sessions. When we told them stories from different countries, they connected these stories and holidays to their own experiences. It was an excellent discussion. It was also delightful to see them embrace and celebrate diversity. I brought them small bookmarks from China as a token of cultural exchange, hoping it would further encourage their curiosity about other cultures.

Reflecting on this first session, I also gained valuable insight into the students’ level of understanding. Given that they are Year 8 students, we now feel confident that we can introduce more complex concepts in future sessions—concepts beyond just cultural stories. We plan to delve into deeper topics, such as what constitutes a country and what makes people identify with their countries. 

For our research part, we were mostly working on getting an outline of our research, which focuses on global and local mapping. We came up with the aim of the research to investigate extracurricular activities focusing on solving SDGs on local, national, and global scales, particularly in deprived areas. We completed our research outline, and through discussion with our teachers, we better understand what we will be doing in the next four weeks. As suggested by our teachers, we decided to build a database gathering information about extracurriculars in Oxfordshire, in the UK, and worldwide. We further created a rough timeline for our work.