Middlebury College
IN-1: Innovation 1

This initiative creates long term partnerships between Middlebury's Schools Abroad and in country organizations working of sustainability related issues. Successive cohorts of students attending a Midd School Abroad work on substantive projects for the in-country organization and help them advance their agendas.

Middlebury has 17 Schools Abroad. Three of them have completed a two year pilot to develop a working model for the entire contingent of schools to adapt. The School in Chile involves a partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society where students are working to help them develop plans a new national park in Tierra del Fuego. In China, the Middlebury School in Kunming is working with The Nature Conservancy of China and Yunnan University to help build the capacity of TNC to carry out environmental education and outreach related to wetland conservation. In Japan, the Middlebury School is working with the Town of Chizu and Tottori University of Environmental Studies to help them address issues related to the depopulation and graying of rural towns through sustainable economic redevelopment. Each pilot is successful in that it has already established ongoing partnerships and have each had at least three successive cohorts of students working on the projects above and which have contributed materially to accomplishing the mutual goals of the partner organizations and the school abroad.