As partner in the Mobile Malawi Project, science educators and instructional designers at Virginia Tech will collaborate with African elders, teachers, teacher educators, and community members to establish a network to develop a science curriculum that draws from local resources and makes them available on a global network. Using multifunctional, mobile telephones, elders, teachers, teacher educators, and school children in Malawi will collect and share multimedia artifacts documenting concepts and principles of ecological sustainability. These artifacts will be shared with educators and designers at Virginia Tech who will develop instructional multimedia materials to align with and enhance the primary science curriculum in Malawi by including indigenous knowledge about ecological sustainability from elders in the communities as well as western scientific knowledge. Thus, a living archive of artifacts documenting and distributing educational materials related to ecological sustainability, impacting locally and globally, will be born.

A primary responsibility of the Virginia Tech site will be to establish and maintain a collaborative socio-technical network of Ministry of Education administrators, university scholars, and primary teachers in Malawi for long-term research and development. The creation of these collaborations is intended to lead to faculty and student exchanges, sharing of data, and co-authoring proposals and publications. The project could contribute significantly to the research, teaching, and outreach missions of the university.

Prior collaborative research from the School of Education at Virginia Tech includes: (1) The Malawi University Partnership for Institutional Capacity (UPIC) Project on Primary Teacher Education, funded by USAID, 2001-2006, (PIs: Dr. Josiah Tlou, Dr. Jerry Niles, Dr. Pat Kelly; Science Education Professor: Dr. George Glasson).  (2) Ecological Sustainability, Indigenous Science, and Education Project funded by the School of Education, 2006, (PI:  Dr. George Glasson and Dr. Josiah Tlou; Malawi Research Consultants: Absalom Phiri and Ndalapa Mhango).  (3) Malawi Study Abroad Program, summer 2006, Director: Dr. George Glasson; (3) Virginia Tech's Center for Instructional Technology Solutions in Industry and Education to integrate technology with Malawi's educational system, 2002-2005, (PI: Dr. John Burton).