The Virginia Department of Education sponsors a program that provides opportunities for a group of public school teachers and administrators to participate in study seminars in selected foreign countries. The 10-day seminars allow teachers to benefit from lectures about the culture, politics, religion, geography, and history of the nations they are visiting. Although the current seminars are designed for teachers of history and the social sciences, they also provide experiences in other fields such as mathematics, science, foreign languages music, literature, and art. The 1999 seminars are scheduled for Israel, Turkey, and Germany. In addition, the Department of Education continues a teacher exchange program involving Virginia and Russia. Teachers are required to pay their expenses for all seminars except the one scheduled for Germany, which is financed by a private nonprofit organization. Co-sponsors of the seminar program include Old Dominion University, the Virginia - Israel Advisory Board, the Armonk Institute, and the World Affairs Councils of America. The Russia teacher exchange program is co-sponsored by the American Academic and Cultural Exchange. Teachers pay their own expenses for this program as well.

Share the Journey!

The seminar teachers' experiences will be shared with all teachers and students in Virginia through the Internet. Seminar participants in each country will provide daily logs of their experiences. These logs, which include pictures, and personal experiences, will build an on-line instructional resource for teachers and students based on Virginia Standards of Learning. Other resources housed on this web site include SOL correlates, background information, and links to additional related sites. WorldNet: Virginia is a project of the Virginia Department of Education and the Prince William County Public Schools.