Aramco World Learning Center No Passport Required

Julie Weiss knows all too well the pressure classroom teachers face to find new material for lesson plans. Resources that can be dropped into different disciplines—and without much effort—can be a balm for those afforded little time.

“Teachers don’t have a necessary a lot in their curriculum for a specific topic,” says the former college educator and curriculum designer for AramcoWorld’s Learning Center. “My approach has always been to step back and do something more meta.”

Learning Center takes this wider-lens approach with a trove of lesson plans and materials anchored to reported stories from AramcoWorld. Each helps students see themselves as part of a larger global community while ensuring they master the Common Core State Standards seeded throughout.

Lesson activities, as short as 15 minutes, include different approaches, from project-based learning to visual analysis, with teachers able to embed the material into nearly any subject curriculum with subjects like science, social studies and language arts. Classes steep themselves in global experiences, such as the resiliency of fig trees in Tunisia to meeting an entrepreneur driven to seed a love of reading. All widen students’ worldviews while weaving learning in between.

“A lot of times, as an educator, you’re looking for relevant stories with cultural understanding,” says Casey Hurtt, a curriculum designer for the Learning Center who formerly ran a Montessori school in Texas. “We developed activities they could do, with limited time, that have thematic approaches.”

Resiliency of Fig Trees

The initial story and subsequent lesson plan around the fig trees of Tunisia stand out as a favorite of Hurtt’s for branching into history, culture and science. Educators can walk students through facts about fig trees and look at ways agricultural experts and scientists work together to problem-solve. Students think beyond the "what" of an issue and consider the "why" and "how," hallmarks of critical thinking.

For example, the fig tree, a cultural symbol throughout history, survives drought by growing its roots toward water sources. The story follows the research initiative FIGGEN, investigating why fig trees thrive amid climate shifts throughout the Mediterranean while other crops do not.

FIGGEN studies strains of fig trees best at surviving harsh conditions and gives that information to farmers. 

To make the lesson local for any class, Hurtt encourages educators to adopt PBL methods such as locating nearby native plants with resiliency properties like the fig tree and comparing the two. She also suggests class projects that involve visiting local nurseries to research how plants survive in their area.

“It’s always a great idea to do community outreach,” she says.

A Passion for Reading

Some stories within Learning Center encompass multiple cultures and locations, allowing students to connect immediately. A former social studies teacher and curriculum designer for Learning Center, Greg Timmons points to the 2021 “For the Love of Reading” story as a hallmark for the reading skills and activities embedded into the subsequent lesson designed by the Learning Center, and for a story that branches among different countries.

In the piece, readers learn about Rana Dajani, a professor of molecular cell biology and founder of We Love Reading, a children’s book program where young people hear a story told aloud—and leave with a book of their own. After returning to Jordan following her studies in the US, Dajani found herself struck by how few people—young and older—read in public. That prompted her to launch a reading program in her town of Amman.

The curriculum from Learning Center includes several exercises, some as short as 15 minutes, that lend themselves to language arts skills, analysis and critical thinking as students immerse themselves in Dajani’s journey.

“The story is incredibly inspiring,” he says.

A Spice Migration

Cinnamon, ginger, cumin, cloves, nutmeg and pepper are spices common to multiple cultures, and the AramcoWorld six-part series, Spice Migrations, walks readers through their history, touching on their cultural importance and also their value in enhancing food around the globe. 

Learning Center breaks these six stories into resources with keywords and mapping activities while also highlighting social studies concepts and reading comprehension skills.

That transformation—from a story to a scholarship opportunity—is the goal of AramcoWorld’s Learning Center, whether focusing on how fig trees have survived amid climate shifts, exploring a quest to seed a love of reading to others or following the way spices have flavored our lives for millennia. Students do more than just walk away with new information. They take learning to a new level beyond the classroom that enhances their life going forward.

“The state tests, for example, are not going to ask students about the history of cinnamon,” says Weiss. “But they will ask about historical turning points. And that’s something you can learn by reading about the history of cinnamon, plus, hopefully, students will find it interesting and compelling.”