Abstract
This article describes a collaborative online project that focused on the Earth Charter, particularly on its principles related to diversity. The project was conducted in two online courses of three sections in two colleges at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU): the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Education. One section of twenty-three students in a Composition II course and fifty-four students in two sections of an Introduction to Diversity for Educators course collaborated in mixed teams on a four-stage problem solving project that exposed the participants to a larger community of learners and reinforced shared responsibility for the present and future welfare of the human family and the global community. The project focused on Principles 1- 3 and 8 -16 of the Earth Charter related to diversity and culminated in each of twenty-two teams completing an undergraduate research paper, an activity to implement the research, and a research poster for presentation on Research Day held on April 20, 2012 at FGCU. Surveys were administered to the students during the first week of the course before the project began and as the project ended to determine their awareness and knowledge of one to two principles of the Earth Charter related to diversity. Ninety-five percent of the thirty-three students who completed the post survey strongly agreed or agreed that they were able to discuss one to two principles of the Earth Charter related to diversity. With these encouraging results, the authors plan to offer online collaborative Earth Charter Diversity projects to their first year composition students and their students who are considering entering the field of education.