Dear Colleagues,

This year, the Global School Laboratory (Global Lab) celebrates its 20th year. Over the course of two decades, a thousand schools in 35 countries have participated in our project. According to a UNESCO publication, Global Lab is “the largest class in the world.”

For the past four years, we’ve been developing Global Lab in Russia and now the project is again going global. We’re preparing an English version of the GL site and soon, Russian and non-Russian students will be able to work together. We will ask all GL participants to use readily available online translations services so English- and Russian-speaking students can communicate, collaborate, and explore.

We continue to improve Global Lab and this year’s key innovation is the Global Lab Learning Unit, or GLU™. A GLU is a multimedia research module, a kind of “elementary particle” for Global Lab. GLUs are the granular units that together form the Global Lab year. Each GLU has everything you need to research a particular topic with other classes: concepts, content, and practical advice; tables for recording observations and accessing the GL database; photo and video galleries; a geographical map that shows where and which data were collected; a chart and graph builder to compare your results with those of other classes; and a forum for discussions.

GLUs are a fundamentally new educational concept. They realize the potential of computer technology to merge content, skill building, and communications. This year, we will try them in action. Please tell us what you think. What do you like about GLUs and what needs to be changed or improved. With your help, we can make GLUs even better for students worldwide.

It takes many people to develop each GLU. Global Lab is particularly grateful to designer Boris Wechter, lead programmer Arseny Lebedev, and educational author Sergei Lovyagin.

Global Lab is hardly just a source of innovative educational resources. We seek to form a community of like-minded people who collaborate with each other to construct new knowledge like real scientists. That is why communication between classes is so important. Write to each other about your work and suggest ideas for joint projects. Conduct them together!

The GL community is steeped in rich and fun traditions. At the beginning of every project year, GL participants introduce themselves, their class, school, city, and region to the GL community. Each class then selects its study site, part of its local environment that students will investigate. Classes present their study sites to the GL community by publishing detailed descriptions of their sites with annotated pictures and videos on the GL website. To present your class, select and describe your study site. GLUs from Stages 1, 2, and 3 will help you do that.

Finally, there is one event for which we ask all GL members to participate. This is the Global Lab Snapshot. On Earth Day, April 22, all Global Lab students make observations and take measurements on their study sites following the same procedures (known as protocols). Aside from this one mandatory investigation and the steps mentioned above, Global Lab provides participants with choices: perform the full course or choose individual GLUs in accordance with your school program.

I want to wish all of you “bon voyage” on our journey into the 2010-2011 Global Lab year.