This Miracle We Call Earth
In February, 2007, Melodic Vision joined Global Classroom's founder and consummate eco-tour guide, Colin Garland, co-leader Meggie Winchell, as well as a dozen high school students from Western Massachusetts, on a trip to Baja, Mexico. Our goal was to experience and document a Global Classroom adventure—exploring other cultures and eco-systems while working on service projects that benefit the earth and the community. We did extensive research, planning, and preparation in order to most effectively collect raw materials—photographic images and recorded sounds—for a new Melodic Vision production with the working title, "This Miracle We Call Earth."
Our plan was to spend ten days with the students in Baja, traveling with them and chronicling their adventures sea kayaking, camping on an un-populated desert island, viewing and touching female gray whales and their calves, California sea lions, playful dolphins, and countless bird species. We were scheduled to join them on trips to a small Mexican school, overnight visits with families from a local village, lending services to a remote fishing community, donating first aid kits and teaching basic first aid, and installing a solar-powered pump to prevent water contamination and the spread of dysentery.
Then came a huge New England winter storm—which threw the trip and our plans into something of a tailspin. Melodic Vision’s artistic team made it across the country and down to Baja, during a brief break in the storm-front. The students, alas, didn’t arrive until five days later, making our experiences together intense, wonderful—but ultimately much too limited to collect the materials, experience the impact of this trip on the students, and create the show we intended.
In light of these little mishaps, we know it only makes sense for us to join another Global Classroom adventure, either returning to Baja next year or going on their Costa Rica trip. Plans are underway for fundraising to extend our research. The final production will be a culmination of Melodic Vision and Global Classroom's shared common goal—to create opportunities and art that heal our hearts and our earth.
Global Classroom’s leader Colin Garland and 
co-leader Meggie Winchell.
Colin Garland started guiding wilderness adventure trips in 1984, and has traveled to nearly thirty countries, fully immersing himself in foreign cultures. Believing that such immersion is a crucial step to finding and enhancing global peace and respect for ourselves, Colin explains, "I guess my greatest passion now is to share 
magic moments with my group...to help them 'feel' all that is around them. ...to witness first hand the miracles that happen daily on this miracle we call Earth."
magic moments with my group...to help them 'feel' all that is around them. ...to witness first hand the miracles that happen daily on this miracle we call Earth." 
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• Global Classroom
