Stars and STEM Stories
Macedonia and Croatia Build Strong Bonds through GLOBE
Two recent GLOBE Workshops held in Berova and Skopje, Republic of Macedonia in June and November, 2005, might have resembled any number of other GLOBE workshops in any other part of the world if not for one crucial detail. Namely, these workshops illustrated the cooperation, unselfish assistance, and exchange of experience that is typical of the relationship between Macedonia and Croatia. These two countries, both of the former Yugoslavia, agree that GLOBE gives an excellent foundation for building strong bonds through the collaborative effort of modernizing science education and encouraging active and responsible citizenship.
Macedonia became a member of the GLOBE family in 1998 and was fairly active for the first four years. In 2002 their implementation began to accelerate. They cite their collaboration with Croatia as being instrumental in their growth. For the 2005 workshops in Macedonia last year, Ms. Angelina Jovanovic, the assistant Macedonian Country Coordinator, invited representatives from the GLOBE Croatia - Ms. Diana Garasic (Country Coordinator), Mr. Vinko Vucic (Deputy Coordinator), Mr. Vladimir Kushan and Ms. Marina Grcic (GLOBE trainers) - to assist the Macedonian trainers. Together they trained 30 Macedonian teachers in various GLOBE protocols, with "very little overhead cost and lots of good will," says Jovanovich.
The two workshops will be remembered by all who attended for many reasons. In Berova, representatives of the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning of Macedonia, two GLOBE National Coordinators, Director of the Peace Corps in Macedonia, national and Croatian trainers, and teachers shared new ideas, experiences, practice, as well as fun and dancing. They mastered many topics and the teachers left the workshop excited to share their new GLOBE protocols with their classes. The same spirit continued during the second workshop in Skopje, in November. These two trainings were only the beginning of a strong bond between Macedonia and Croatia, marked by collaboration, advice, and exchange. The results of these two workshops are expected to be presented at the central celebration of 22 April - GLOBE's 11th birthday!
27 March 2006