Beautiful Nation Project

Beautiful Nation is an online education project designed to encourage young people, ages 6-18, to develop deep connections with our earth and with each other. The project tracks the Voyage of Makulu, a 43 foot sailing vessel on an around-the-world circumnavigation, in order to foster a sense of wonder and enthusiasm for exploration among youth. Working in partnership with leading geography education nonprofit Reach the World and world class science education nonprofit Agastya, Beautiful Nation will use 21st Century tools and the timeless art of storytelling to build an online community of global citizens, eager to explore and fall in love with our planet! The crew will report in real-time via media-rich articles and videos published online in the Beautiful Nation Social Network and the Reach the World global journalism website, while working with experts and educators in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) disciplines to share research data on the effects of marine debris. In addition, the crew will report on traditional ways of life in the communities that Makulu visits. Beautiful Nation will reach an audience of over one million students (ages 6-18) per year through its partnerships. Pre-departure, students in the Reach the World program in New York City will be welcomed to tour the ship and meet the crew. Subsequently, the ship will arrive in Chennai, India to meet Agastya's students half-way through the voyage. Throughout the duration of the voyage, in addition to posting online content, the crew will interact with students via messaging and videoconferencing to field questions in real-time. Webisodes documenting the crew's land explorations, including various UNESCO World Heritage sites, and life at sea, with a focus on marine ecology, will be published monthly to support core learning in the classroom.