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Example of Active Learning: Backpacking around the World

The background is a topographical map of northern Italy and the Alps, central in the image we see the caption "Backpacking Around the World Project" with white letters. Placed on top of the map are several items related to travelling; from the top left we see a Norwegian passport, a restaurant meny, a five rupie bank note, a Big Mac burger, a Chinese train ticket and a photograph of a young man in shorts and a hat trekking in the Himalayas. Underneath from the left there is an American passport, a picture taken from a distance of the Motherland Monument in Kyiv, an open Canadian passport with plenty of entry stamps for different locations, a photograph of the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai and a Swedish passport.

Backpacking-Project

In the Swedish national curriculum, each term there is time allocated for something called “students’ choice”. The students are invited to participate in the creation of different pedagogical activities that must be related to any part of the curriculum. Each student’s elected activity needs to be associated with at least one school subject, and there needs to be student input – that is, teachers’ design learning activities that are suited to some of the students' requests. A few years ago, at our school, some 8th graders suggested the idea of devising a long-term project, where students would be encouraged to plan a long backpacking trip around the world “on a shoestring” that they could actually make use of in reality in the future. The whole project evolved into a fully transdisciplinary learning activity that has been used since multiple times and has proven to be integrative and sustainable, as the students have learned to use, for example, different functions of Google Earth, such as street view and flight simulator, while developing skills related to budgeting, logistics, and mathematics. The students were invited to use different websites to investigate the prices and requisites for food, accommodation, insurance, visas, and transport. There was a clearly defined goal of developing their geographical and mathematical skills, to enhance their civic education, to improve their understanding of home economics theory, and to cultivate their all-round education.

The instructions for this activity were quite flexible. The students had to come up with a plan for a long backpacking trip around the world that was to last for a whole year. The idea was to let the students learn about the world while they were imagining the trip of their dreams. The fictional scenario was based on a hypothetical sabbatical year, once they turned the age of 20. At first, the students were asked to pick at least ten different destinations to start with, and one of the requirements was that they had to travel around the world while visiting at least three continents. Other than that, they had the total freedom to decide which destinations they would visit, but they needed to establish a clear budget for all things necessary during a period of ten to 12 months away from home. This research project proved to be truly inspiring for the students. At the end of the activity, they were invited to make an oral presentation with the help of a PowerPoint, where they displayed maps, itineraries, and pictures of the places they would like to visit, the different landmarks that they would want to see, and the types of overnight accommodation that they would utilise. They were also asked to show at least one type of country-specific or exotic meal that they would like to try for each destination and find the information about the cost and ingredients for each meal. The students also needed to explain their choice of transportation and present a detailed budget for the entire trip. In addition, they needed to provide information concerning the cultures and languages of the countries that they had decided to visit and investigate what would be the best time of the year or the most favourable season to travel to the places on their itinerary. They were also invited to look for potential work as they were travelling, in order to save money as they were travelling during their hypothetical sabbatical year. Some students looked at the possibilities of working as lifeguards at hotel pools, others looked for the possibility to do some agricultural work in places like Greece, Italy, Israel, Australia, or France, and yet others looked for opportunities to work in Asia as English teachers for speakers of other languages.

Image where we see how many Big Macs you could buy for ＄100 in January 2022. On the top left it says we can get 61 in India (61 little burgers are drawn next). After that it says 47 in Ukraine and Hong Kong (47 little burgers are drawn next), next comes the number 42 which you can get in Malaysia (42 little burgers are drawn beside), next is the number 40  it says you can get 40 burgers in China, South Africa, Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan (40 little burgers are drawn next), the next one is the number 39,  it says you can get 39 burgers in Russia and Sri Lanka (39 little burgers are drawn beside), the next one is the number 38, it says you can get 38 burgers in Egypt, Poland and Hungary (38 little burgers are drawn beside),  the following is 37, it says you can get 37 burgers in Saudi Arabia, Philippines and Mexico (37 little burgers are drawn beside),  the following is 34, it says you can get 34 burgers in Lithuania and Pakistan (34 little burgers are drawn beside), next is 33, it says you can get 33 burgers in Latvia (33 little burgers are drawn beside), next is 31, it says you can get 31 burgers in South Korea (31 little burgers are drawn beside), then it's 30, it says you can get 30 burgers in UAE (30 little burgers are drawn beside), then it's 28, it says you can get 28 burgers in Czech Republic and Turkey (28 little burgers are drawn beside), then it's 26, it says you can get 26 burgers in Peru, Singapore and Britain (26 little burgers are drawn beside), then it's 24, it says you can get 24 burgers in Costa Rica, Chile, New Zealand, Israel and Japan (24 little burgers are drawn beside), then it's 23, it says you can get 23 burgers in the USA (23 little burgers are drawn beside), finally on that line it's 22, it says you can get 22 burgers in the Euro area and in Colombia (22 little burgers are drawn beside), on the penultimate line it starts with 21, it says you can get 21 burgers in Canada, Uruguay and Argentina (21 little burgers are drawn beside), Alt text cont.: then it's 20, which it says you can get in Australia (20 little burgers are drawn beside), then it's 18, which it says you can get in Denmark (18 little burgers are drawn beside), finally on that that line it's 17, which it says you can get in Brazil (17 little burgers are drawn beside), and on the very last line it starts with 16, it says you can get 16 burgers in Sweden (16 little burgers are drawn beside), and the last and most expensive countries are Norway and Switzerland where it says you would get only 14 burgers (14 little burgers are drawn there) <br>Supplementary notes<br> The Big Mac index is a way of measuring Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) between different countries. By diverting the average national Big Mac prices to U.S. dollars, the same goods can be informally compared. The Big Mac can also be a good indicator for the individual purchasing power of an economy since it exists worldwide in a standard size, composition and quality.

Big Mac Index

Attribution: Antti Vuorela, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The first step of the project to undertake was to use Google Earth and decide which places they would like to visit, including a calendar with all the approximate times spent in every destination. The next step was to investigate and establish the costs of transportation while choosing the most cost-efficient way to travel between the different destinations chosen, regardless of the type of transportation. The students had to visit different websites to find the prices for flights, bus trips, train rides, or boat rides (ferries and/or ships) between each destination. The following step was to investigate the cost for accommodation for every stay and to locate each form of accommodation on city maps. The students had to evaluate the optimal time spent at each destination, knowing that they would be on a limited budget. The next step was to establish a daily budget for food and drinks for each destination. They needed to adopt their budget according to the cost of living for each destination by using the website that uses the Big Mac index to compare the average cost for food in varying countries around the world. Students learnt to understand how the cost of living varies between each destination as they used the data from this website. The students became familiar with the idea of “burgernomics” while visiting the website “Statista”.1

Landscape photograph of a very still, crispy blue lake with pine forested shores and a sharply pointy and snow-covered mountain-range in the distance. The blank lake mirrors both the forest, the mountain-range, and the clear, blue sky above.

Moraine Lake Canada

Attribution: Gorgo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

These statistics opened the door to a really complex series of mathematical analysis highlighting the differences between the economies and the value-added tax systems of various countries. Imagine if the students have to budget for three meals a day, and they have access to a ratio based on the average price for a Big Mac meal. It gives them a way to measure the cost for food and drinks at every destination. Needless to say, we most certainly do not encourage our students to eat at McDonald's while visiting all the interesting food cultures around the world, but this ratio reflects the costs of living in general and this will also express other economic realities for each destination, including the price for public transportation within the cities and will also reflect the cost for all the activities chosen during each stay, including entrance fees to museums, etc. Some students found the area of currency conversion particularly problematic when they attempted to budget accurately, for example when they tried to convert all costs into Swedish currency from other currencies such as the euro, Japanese yen, South African rand, Indian rupee, or US dollar. The students were also invited to visit the different websites to get information about any necessary visas, including their respective costs.

Map of the world with America to the left and with Asia, Australia and New Zealand to the far right. All countries are colour coded according to the price of a Big Mac in that country in January 2022. The countries were the Big Mac is the most expensive is coloured in deep red (the Big Mac is more than six dollars), and the colours move from red through orange to light yellow (where the Big Mac costs one dollar fifty). The countries where no data is available are grey.

Price of Big Mac in US Dollars

Map created by Philippe Longchamps on behalf of Integreateach - Using Map Chart and data from the Economist.com website.

The success of this integrative and sustainable active learning activity does not need to be evaluated in terms of grades, because ‘students’ choice’ activities are not submitted to any type of qualitative assessment. The ultimate assessment for each individual project is done orally by the teacher after each student’s presentation. At least one former student who participated in this project found the inspiration to take a sabbatical year and travel around the world four years after taking part in this exciting integrative active learning activity. She ended up travelling for eight months while spending an extended period of time in three different locations, namely the Gold Coast of Australia, Nice in France, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, much as she had planned in her school project four years earlier.

Image of three young women, probably in their early twenties at an airport with large rucksacks on their backs. The one to the left has dark hair, a cerise rucksack, grey sweat-pants, a grey shawl and a black leather jacket. The central one has blond hair, black leggings, white trainers and a black leather coat. The one to the right has dark blond curly hair, beige cargo trousers and a heavy dark grey coat. All three women are smiling widely at the camera. At a distance we see people waiting in a line for check-in.

Three Backpackers

Attribution: Threedozenpegs, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
  1. The Big Mac Index 2020, www.statista.com/statistics/274326/big-mac-index-global-prices-for-a-big-mac. Survey time period: January 2022. The Big Mac index is a way of measuring Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) between different countries. By diverting the average national Big Mac prices to U.S. dollars, the same goods can be informally compared. The Big Mac can also be a good indicator for the individual purchasing power of an economy since it exists worldwide in a standard size, composition and quality