La Chataigneraie - Int'l School of Geneva in Founex
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A group of students who are in their next to final year at La Châtaigneraie in Founex are safe, according to the International School of Geneva, after arriving in Marrakesh Thursday morning 28 April and finding themselves only a few hundred metres from the blast that shook the Arguna Cafe and killed at least 14 people.
La Châtaigneraie is one of four campuses of the International School of Geneva. The students are on an International Baccalaureate programme geography field trip and in a letter being sent to parents today the school says that “all of our students are safe and well and though they were aware of the explosion [they] were at no time in any danger. The group are now in the hotel and will stay there whilst the details and cause of the explosion are determined.”
School officials say they are “keeping an open mind about the continuation of the trip. As and when further information becomes available we will review it, make a final decision.”
The cause of the blast is not yet clear, although Morocco’s Interior Ministry said early Friday on state television that it was a terrorist act.
The official death toll is 14, but local TV reports in Morocco say 15 people died, including six French citizens, five Moroccans, a Russian and a British citizen, but the government has not officially confirmed the nationalities. France has confirmed the deaths of its citizens.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – One hundred students from 11 to 14 are learning how to save a heart today, thanks to a course organized by the International School of Geneva and the Swiss Heart Foundation.
They’ll be working with Mini-Anne, a new lifesaving measures self-teaching doll.
The students are given a hands-on course in the lifesaving measures needed when confronted by someone suffering from heart or circulatory failure.
The course was organized after the school’s application was accepted for Project Help, a cantonal project to educate and involve young people in lifesaving programmes.
Some 8,000 people die every year of heart failure, in Switzerland.
Only 5 percent of those live if the problem occurs outside a hospital setting. Only 1-2 percent of the population knows what steps to take to help the victim.
Environmental research becomes more visible thanks to new database
Business and environmental education, non-voting “votes” for foreigners, teacher training in int’l education part of the action
Business and the environment: no longer unnatural bedfellows in Switzerland
Geneva and Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Researchers worldwide will now be able to connect more easily with Swiss researchers in environmental studies thanks to a new database hosted by the Federal Office for the Environment. The database, officially online as of Monday 8 November, regroups more than 1,000 projects at 10 universities, the two EPFs (polytechnic institutes in Lausanne and Zurich), 7 specialized graduate schools and 30 private and public institutions involved in the field. The publicly available information can be searched by institution, canton or research area (or by key words) in English, French, German and Italian.
Geneva’s Graduate Institute opens new international environmental centre
One of the newcomers to the group is the Graduate Institute’s Centre for International Environmental Studies (CIES) in Geneva, launched 3 November with a packed house at the opening day lecture.
Vicky Tuck to head International School of Geneva in mid-2011
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The International School of Geneva has named a new director general, Vicky Tuck, who will step into the job in July 2011 when current the current head, Nicholas Tate, retires.
Tuck is currently the principal of Cheltenham Ladies’ College in the UK, a highly regarded British independent school where she has worked for the past 15 years. She is a well-known figure in education in the UK, where she is vice-chair of the Independent Schools Council. She writes a regular column on education for the Telegraph newspaper.
Her time at Cheltenham has been marked by the introduction of the International Baccalaurete (IB) programme and several successful capital fundraising campaigns.
Her announced departure from Cheltenham and an interview with the Times, UK, has been making a stir in the British media, with her references to negative attitudes in Britain towards fee-paying schools and independent education.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A post-graduate teachers’ certification course in English will be offered starting in September 2010 in Geneva, the first of its kind in the area. The PGCE is a new programme created jointly by Durham University in Britain with the International School of Geneva (ISG), for people who want to teach in an international education context.
Twelve students will be selected by Durham, with input from the ISG, for the course which runs for an academic year.
Nations campus, ISG, in Geneva
Celebrating a new sports hall at La Chataigneraie, Founex, part of the ISG
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Nicholas Tate, director-general of the International School of Geneva (ISG), will retire in August 2011, the school’s governing foundation has announced. It has begun a search for his successor to head the world’s oldest and largest international school.
Nogles, Arizona, March 2007 (© Chris Maluszynski/Agence Vu)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Pont de la Machine in the centre of Geneva, not far from the Mont Blanc bridge, will for the next three months offer visitors the irony of a bridge as a showcase for walls that divide humanity. “Murs”, an extraordinary exhibit of large-scale photos of barriers taken by some of the world’s top photographers, opened Monday 9 November in Geneva. The show continues to 31 January 2010. The collection of images of life on both sides of walls that were erected for political reasons are striking, particularly at night or in rainy weather when their backlighting makes them stand out from the stream of people crossing the bridge.
Pedestrians entering the footbridge from the left bank of the Rhone first see the building of the Berlin wall: the exhibit’s opening was timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of its fall. Monday, before the official opening, saw a typical crowd of people crossing the bridge, some on their cell phones with thoughts elsewhere and others with their eyes on the ground, concentrating on getting from point A to point B. All were obliged to confront the artwork because the 12 lightboxes that hold 24 large format images (200cm wide) printed on tarmac are laid out in such a way that people have to zigzag across the bridge.
Title: Students introduce families to Red Cross Museum
Location: Geneva, Red Cross Museum
Link out: Click here
Description: Young students from the International School of Geneva introduce families (children 8-15) to the Int. Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum – no registration necessary and event is free if under 16
Start Time: 11:00
Date: 11 Oct 2009
And 23% call themselves Swiss (image: Nick Zeller)
Founex, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Graduation day at the La Chataigneraie campus of the International School of Geneva offered a surprise Friday 30 May, when the nationalities of the students were announced: Swiss topped the list with 31 of the 133 students, followed by British with 26. Sweden and the US each had seven in the graduating class and there were six Canadians.
The students were asked to record their nationality and where they were planning to go next academic year. This was the first year that dual- and multi-nationality students were asked to select which nationality they wished to be recorded, and the result was a boost in Swiss students listed.
International School of Geneva, Switzerland, Nations campus (click on image to view larger)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The International School of Geneva has been given a green light by the canton to proceed with construction of a new sports hall and a five-storey building that will provide 14 additional classrooms and an administrative centre at the Nations campus in Grand-Saconnex.
P Pardeshi, right
Founex, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – La Chataigneraie (International School of Geneva) final year student Pratyancha Pardeshi is one of six students to win a top award and CHF500 prize for an economics essay she submitted to the Swiss National Bank’s economics teaching programme, iconomix. Her paper, “How can government intervention be used to correct the market failure occurring in Bhimashankar Wildlife Sanctuary?” was written as part of the International Baccalaureate diploma programme’s “extended essay” requirement.
Iconomix gold winners 2009
Title: Children’s activities: visit to the Red Cross museum
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: The Red Cross and Red Crescent museum and the International School of Geneva tell you in young words about the museum.
In English, for kids 8 to 16 years of age and their parents.
Free entrance to those under 16 years of age. No booking required.
Date: 22 Mar 2009
Students give a thumbs-up to the new La Chat sports hall.
Founex, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – An easy-to-spot landmark for many people as they flew into Geneva was for several years the large bright blue and yellow “Bubble” sports hall near the autoroute at La Châtaigneraie, a campus of the International School of Geneva. It was torn down in 2006 to make way for a more permanent and larger sports hall, inaugurated 9-11 October with a ceremony and other events.
