Sarah Smith taught English Language Arts at Campbell-Savona High School since earning a Bachelor of English in 2005 from the State University of New York at Geneseo. Since she began teaching, she has had the opportunity to instruct grades 9-12 along with a variety of electives and college level classes through the local community college; now however, she teaches English to juniors and seniors. Campbell-Savona is a relatively small high school with approximately 500 students and is situated in a rural farming community in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State. Sarah is also an advisor for the Class of 2015 and the National Honor Society which regularly sponsors volunteer projects throughout the school district. Outside of Campbell-Savona, Sarah also works at the YMCA in Corning, New York where she enjoys interacting and exercising with families in a health and wellness environment. As a participant in the TGC program, Sarah experienced education in a completely new cultural environment. She passed on the knowledge gained from this incredible opportunity to the students in her small community to better help them understand globalization and the importance of interdependence.

Sarah believes globally competent 21st century educators are charged with framing their instruction with the question, “What matters most for students to understand about the world so they can participate fully in its future?” To her, educators have the responsibility to address pressing issues such as the environment, migration and immigration, poverty, healthcare, and human rights. This will help students develop a strong capacity to cooperate across borders, and to solve global problems in the workplace, through the internet, and in private decision-making. Sarah provides many helpful resources for educators wishing to create global classrooms in her Global Education Guide. She has included a unit plan on Food Security and student work from this unit. In this project-based unit, students explore global food insecurity, origins of food, child labor, food labels, and the industrialization of farming and the food industry. They apply this knowledge to further study the social, economic, and political effects of food consumption. Sarah traveled to Colombia on her International Field Explore and provides a collection of resources on her travel blog.