Perspective | Growing global: Year two of purposeful partnerships at Heritage Middle 

One year ago, the student global leaders at Heritage Middle School launched a journey that continues to shape our school culture today. That journey is rooted in global competencies and durable skills like empathy, collaboration, and personal responsibility. With support from our founding partnerships with Participate Learning and Appalachian GEAR UP, we’ve empowered students to become future-ready leaders who think globally, act locally, and care deeply.

From the beginning, our focus has been on making learning meaningful through real-world action. What started last year as a classroom conversation around breakfast waste grew into a schoolwide initiative for responsible consumption — an idea explored in my earlier EdNC article, “Breakfast in the bag: Learning global leadership through responsible consumption.”

That initiative became a springboard for deeper engagement: this year, students designed and constructed an eight-foot mural map of North Carolina made entirely from upcycled plastic bottle caps. Featuring a heart over western North Carolina, the mural will be installed above our school’s water bottle filling station as a lasting symbol of collective action, environmental responsibility, and community pride.

This public art installation is more than just a recycling project. It represents the creative, critical thinking, and collaborative mindset we seek to foster. Students took ownership of the environmental impact of plastics, connected it to their lived experience, and worked as a team to craft a solution. These are the very skills our state and our world need — skills emphasized by both the North Carolina Portrait of a Graduate and our commitment to globally competent education.

The culture of global learning at Heritage continues to grow through inspired teacher leadership and fresh innovation. This year, our Destination Imagination Service Learning Team — composed entirely of students — took on a real-world crisis, responding to the displacement of animals after Hurricane Helene. True to the program’s structure, their sponsor, Mike McQuaid, was not permitted to influence or participate in their creative process, allowing students to fully own every aspect of their project.

With compassion and purpose, the team partnered with Misfit Mountain Rescue, assisted in the adoption of eight animals, collected over 1,300 pounds of pet food, and donated $300 to help the organization continue its mission. These students practiced civic engagement, solution-seeking, and sustained community impact — hallmarks of both global competence and durable skill-building.

Our efforts at Heritage Middle School reflect and support a broader shift in Burke County toward a culture of educational attainment and student readiness. As described in the recent EdNC article, “How one county worked together to create a culture of attainment,” this momentum has been years in the making, built through collaboration, vision, and a shared commitment to student success.

At Heritage Middle School, we hope the work our students are doing through the Global Leaders program is contributing to this larger movement. Through our partnerships with Participate Learning and Appalachian GEAR UP, our students are not only exploring the world but also preparing for life beyond middle school. By connecting global learning to local action, we’re helping build a future where young people in Burke County are empowered to lead, learn, and thrive — locally and globally.

One year later, the global leaders at Heritage are proving that global learning is not an add-on. It’s a mindset. A framework. A way forward. And as our students continue to lead with purpose and vision, we remain committed to the belief that global learning starts here, and it goes everywhere.