The international My Community, Our Earth (MyCOE) geography and sustainable development project received a significant local boost due to the efforts of the American embassy in Ankara, Turkey.
MyCOE is a special educational program that encourages participating secondary school and university students throughout the world to use geographic tools to demonstrate how their communities are changing, the effects of those changes, and what might be done in their communities to improve the quality of life and conserve natural resources.
The American embassy recently hosted a MyCOE presentation for Turkish officials that attracted more than 70 attendees. Representatives from the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Environment, and National Education as well as other government officials and educators attended the meeting.
In addition, the official MyCOE announcement has been translated into Turkish and posted on the embassy Web site. The results of these efforts were almost immediate, with more than 40 students and teachers registering their project ideas and requesting the free resource kits. Organizers of the MyCOE project include the National Geographic Society, the Association of American Geographers, the United Nations Environment Programme, and ESRI.
The results of the MyCOE project will be presented at the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) Conference, which will convene in Johannesburg, South Africa, later this summer.
