Help Us Become Global Educators

Hello Friends! We are about to embark on the educational experience of a lifetime!  We are heading down under to Australia to student teach for ten weeks during the 2014 spring semester.  As you can imagine, this journey to Australia comes with a hefty price tag.  A plane tickets to fly half way across the world run about $2,000 per person, as well as other traveling expenses.  We will be staying with Australian host families who will be providing room and board for around $200 per week.  While working with the Australian youth in the classroom, we will also be involved with community service.  As future educators, we have come to understand the importance of a global education in the classroom, and would be beyond grateful if you would help us finance this trip!

Between both of us, our expenses include:

• Plane tickets – $4,000
• Room and board – $4,000
• Living expenses – $2,000

Our journey will cost us around $10,000 in total, and our goal is to fund at least half of our trip before we get on a plane to Australia.  Any assistance you can provide would be most appreciated!

About Us:

We’d like to invite you to read the following information to get to know us a little better and hear our stories.  Zach plans to be a social studies teacher with focuses in political science, history and geography.  Adam plans to be a physics teacher and has research experience and an interest in astronomy.  We’ve both spent our careers at Butler academically focused but have managed to find time for other extremely enriching activities on and off campus.  Both of us have been involved with our fraternity, Sigma Nu.  We have embraced Sigma Nu’s ideals of Love, Truth, and Honor and have tried to uphold those values with our friends, family, and in our classrooms.  Besides direct involvement with the fraternity Zach is a delegate on Butler’s Interfraternal Council, a representative on the Student Government Association, a member of the education honor society Kappa Delta Pi, and a member of Order of Omega (a Greek honor society).  Adam has been involved as a small group guide and student coordinator of orientation for freshmen, served as a guide at the Holcomb Observatory and Planetarium, a mentor in the Emerging Leaders program, a member of Order of Omega, and served as the secretary for the Society of Physics Students.

While we are currently enrolled as students at Butler University, we are also enrolled in Indiana University as graduate students in IU’s Global Gateway for Teachers program. 

Indiana Global Gateway for Teachers:

One of the only opportunities for growth that we have been unable to obtain at Butler has been to study abroad.  With rigorous coursework and lots of extra-curricular activities, we were both unable to find time to study abroad.  When we heard about a chance to do part of our student teaching abroad we both jumped at the opportunity.  We want to gain a more global understanding because we want to make sure we can serve students from any background. We know that first-hand experience while immersed in another culture is second to none.  Through the Indiana University Global Gateway for Teachers we will both be able to gain the cultural awareness and diverse experience we so desire.  We will be living and teaching in Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia.  We will be living with different families and working in different classrooms in Byron Bay High School.  As well as our work with students in the classroom, we will both be serving the community in some way.  This experience will certainly be life changing, making us both world-class educators.  We hope that you can help make this journey possible by donating whatever you can afford!  Thanks and g’day!

We will keep everyone updated on our adventure using our own individual blogs:

Zachary Baldwin: http://teachingdownunder.weebly.com/

Adam Hibshman: http://adamadventuretime.weebly.com/