An overview
- The Team Project for Global Perspectives is an important collaborative task. This component is internally assessed and externally moderated and make up 35% of the final IGCSE mark.
- It is assessed out of 70 marks and represents 35% of your final mark.
- A maximum of 5 people and a minimum of 2. Cambridge recommends 4.
- The Team project is both a research investigation into a global perspectives topic and a planned action/outcome based on that topic.
- For instance, groups could research a global issue such as food waste. They would research the issue from an international, local, personal and cross-cultural perspective, then plan an outcome such as a ‘raising awareness’ campaign within school or your local community.
- In the Team Project, candidates are assessed on the skills of research, analysis, evaluation, reflection, communication and collaboration.
How will I be assessed?
1. Team Element
- As a team, you will need to produce an outcome (s) and an explanation as a collaboration.
- The Explanation must be 200–300 words. (10 marks)
2. Personal element
- Each student needs to write a reflective paper about the research, their contribution and what they learnt.
- The paper must be 750-1000 words (60 Marks)
TEAM ELEMENT
- The Outcome and Explanation together carry a total of four marks.
- Up to six further marks may be awarded for the candidates’ ability to work as a team (Collaboration).
- Aspects of collaboration include the introduction of new ideas, mutual understanding and commitment to the process. Collaboration is assessed through teacher observation.
What is an outcome?
- The Outcome is the action you take, or what you produce, or an event you arrange, with your team, to achieve your aim.
Possible outcomes may include
- Posters
- Information leaflet
- School seminars
- Fundraising events
- A webpage
- Videos eg of a recorded event (no longer than 10 minutes)
- Infographics
- Poems
- Recorded songs
- Informative presentation
NB:
- Whichever outcome you choose, it should be possible to evaluate the success of the aim. For instance, if you have designed posters or a video aimed at raising awareness about food wastage in school, observe the amount of food wasted in the coming weeks. Be careful with websites as they can sometimes prove difficult to evaluate their success.
- Interviews carried out to gather views/perspectives cannot be an Outcome in themselves.
- An essay cannot be used as an outcome.
What is an aim?
What do you want to achieve in your project aim?
- to raise awareness of the importance of sanitation for girls in rural Kajiado area.
- To educate fellow classmates on practical tips to avoid food waste in the school.
- To collect and distribute learning materials to children in the rural area.
- To support the refugee community in order to deal with the problem of poverty.
- To raise an awareness about the unsustainability of the fashion industry clothes.
- to improve…
- to inform….
A showcase of students’ team project examples can found here.
What are cultural perspectives?
- Before creating the outcome, you need to find out the perspectives of different cultures towards the issue.
- Cultures could include different genders, countries, age groups, students, teachers etc
- For example, what do different cultures perceive/feel about/react to racial discrimination.
- Your outcome must showcase how different groups of people view the issue in question.
List of topics for the 2025 exam
- Conflict and peace
- Disease and health
- Poverty and inequality
- Sport and recreation
- Human rights
- Tradition, culture and identity
- Language and communication
- Water, food and agriculture.
- List of topics for the exams from 2025
- Arts in society
- Change in culture and communities
- Climate change, energy and resources
- Conflict and peace
- Development, trade and aid
- Digital world
- Education for all
- Employment
- Environment, pollution and conservation
- Globalisation
- Health and wellbeing
- Law and criminality
- Media and communication
- Migration and urbanisation
- Political power and action
- Poverty and inequality
- Social identity and inclusion
- Sport and recreation
- Technology, industry and innovation
- Transport, travel and tourism
- Values and beliefs
- Water, food and agriculture
Examples of local issues and actions
| Topic | Aim | Action/outcome |
| Water, food and agriculture. | To reduce food waste in schools: | an experiment involving school food services and an advertising campaign. |
| Human rights | To improve the lives of refugees | a drive to encourage school students to become pen-pals. |
| Disease and health | To change attitudes to pollution | a litter pick in an area and a campaign to guide a town’s population. |
| Poverty and inequality | To improve disabled access to a local building | design and develop a means giving access to disabled people. |
| Water, food and agriculture. | To support local farmers with irrigation issues | to investigate irrigation globally and work with a local group of farmers to trial (an) innovative method(s) |
| Poverty and inequality | To support local equality | to work with local schools to teach basic English to young children. |
| Sport and recreation | To support local education | to hold sports events in school where local schools without sports facilities can learn about and enjoy new sports. |
| Poverty and inequality | To support local homeless people | to hold a charity event to raise funds for a homeless charity |
| Disease and health | To support healthy eating | a campaign involving professional contributions and a school campaign to encourage healthy eating. |
| Disease and health | to raise awareness about the support available to teenagers suffering from stress |
THE EXPLANATION
- The Explanation should consist of a word count between 200-300 words. You need to write about:
- the project aim
- a brief description of the Outcome
- an explanation of how the team’s exploration of different cultural perspectives has informed or supports the Outcome.
- Where work has exceeded the word limit, teachers will not credit beyond the first 300 words.
Sample Explanation 1
About the aim:
The principal aim of our project is to spread cognizance concerning the scarcity of clean water throughout Pakistan. We had to conduct primary and secondary research to ensure and affirm our perspectives regarding this issue of water sanitation, especially in rural areas. Our research on the internet showed that at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with feces. In Pakistan, over 21 million people still have no choice but to drink dirty water. It is also estimated that 30 percent of all diseases are caused due to poor water quality. We discovered by interviewing a doctor that millions of people in Pakistan die from contaminated water.
Cross-cultural perspective:
We interviewed several individuals in order to get their perspectives. We interviewed some privileged citizens who stated that they obtained their water from clean sources such as tankers and pipelines. We also interviewed the underprivileged interviewees who elaborated that they did not get clean water due to which problems were created, such as diseases. Through this, we arrived at our outcome which was to undertake a campaign aimed at supplying water to people in need.
Outcome brief:
Our team carried out the campaign through which we created awareness amongst people about the lack of clean water in underprivileged areas. We raised a considerable sum of money by carrying out a donation drive, which was sufficient to construct a hand pump. Therefore, we gave back to our community through its construction. Our progress can be viewed through this video on YouTube.’(link attached)
Sample Explanation 2
Cultural perspectives and aim
‘Before deciding the outcome of our project, Team Tangled guided themselves through a cross cultural research to gain a diversified and distinctive understanding about attitudes to Mental Health and thus reach a desired outcome.
To start off we carried out a survey (about depression) amongst our school pupils of grade VIII. These were a set of questions picked from various websites. Sadly, almost 70 per cent of these teenagers were moderately depressed.
Furthermore, to get to know the views of people regarding depression we distributed questionnaires amongst adults of varying social classes. As expected, depression was seen as a taboo in almost all classes. Thus, we decided that it was high time to raise awareness regarding depression and make it our outcome.
Outcome
To create awareness, we conducted a workshop for grade VIII pupils that would help them identify whether they were depressed. An extension of this workshop was carried out for parents so that we would be able to de-stigmatise it. We believed that an educational workshop is the best way to connect with people as it is interactive. The information we acquired was well researched through different resources. To assess the success of our aim, we conducted a survey on those who attended the workshop and they all admitted to be more aware about depression.
In order to reach out to people of different age groups we made a social media page and named it ‘Tangled’. We posted the videos and pictures of our workshop with voiceovers on Instagram because we did it bilingually. The message had to be spread properly so that people would relate to it and understand. Making the social media page gave us the opportunity to incorporate all the different things we did to raise awareness i.e. workshops posted on one platform.’
IMPORTANT!
Follow these steps to make your project work
- The team selects a topic from the topic list and identifies a relevant local issue.
- The team carries out research into the topic and local issue as well as different cultural perspectives on the issue.
- Each team member researches a different aspect, such as a different perspective.
- Based on their research findings, and through discussion, the team decides on a course of action (outcome) they might take to address the issue.
- The team plans and carries out the action (outcome).
- They measure the success of their action in addressing the issue.
- The team also collaborates to write a planning document – the Explanation of Research and Planning, which explains their decisions and planned actions.
- They collaborate to produce the Evidence of Action (outcome).
REFLECTIVE PAPER
Reflection is:
- Self awareness: thinking of yourself, your experiences and your view of the world
- Self improvement: learning from experiences and wanting to improve some area of your life
- Empowerment: putting you in control of making changes and behaving in a different way
Personal Element
At the end of the process each candidate will produce a written Reflective Paper (750–1000 words) focusing on:
- your personal research for the project and your own work processes;
- the effectiveness of the Outcome in achieving the project aim;
- what you have learned about different cultural perspectives of the issue;
- what you have learned about teamwork overall and your own performance as a team member
- What skills have you learned overall from carrying out the project.
Structure
1. Strengths and limitations of the outcome in achieving the project aims and how you can improve.
2. Strengths and limitations of work processes
3. Benefits and challenges of team work
4. Strengths and weaknesses of own performance as a team member
5. Insight gained on cultural perspectives and research.
6. Practical skilled developed
7. Bibliography
AREAS OF ASSESSMENT
1. Research, analysis and evaluation. (20 Marks)
(a) Evaluating the outcome (both strengths and weaknesses and improvements)
Sample Outcome Evaluation
STRENGTHS
During the research phase, we achieved quantitative and qualitative data and explored various cultural perspectives. It contributed immensely to the planning phase, such as deciding the target audience and raising awareness methods. To reach a multitude and display it in an eye-catching way, we decided to create a website. Beyond designing a simple yet informational website, we had the opportunity to interview human rights activists who enlightened us with various unconventional ideas. The addition of an interview gave our website a mixture of secondary and primary research, which further reinforced our cause.
LIMITATIONS
Following recent Covid guidelines, the plan to distribute posters in public areas needed modification. As our project centred around posters, a considerable number of adjustments were necessary – prolonging the initiation of the task. Consequently, our efforts to gather a crowd took weeks to reach a milestone.
SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS
‘Contrary to promoting the website to friends, students, and families, I think that collaborating with charitable organisations would’ve been an efficient use of resources and time. These organisations would’ve also provided valuable opinions and guidance ideas for our website to strengthen our cause. Simultaneously, we could’ve spread awareness and broadened our influence in a short period. Alternatively, giving equal importance to each method would’ve better equipped us for any changes. Additional refinements could’ve been made in our surveys to better assess public opinions by distributing to international participants, achieving well-represented data. On the other hand, limiting our focus to represent a national or local perspective meant spreading the survey to selected states and utilising more manageable distribution channels. In addition, amending specific questions would’ve achieved more diverse and distinct answers, including contradicting opinions.’
(b) Evaluating work processes – it should consider ways in which you as the learner was an effective worker/ researcher and ways in which you were not effective.
Sample work processes evaluation.
Strengths
I learned and experienced that it’s ok to disagree with others and state your opinions that could change ideas for the better. As I held both of these strengths and weaknesses, I managed to confidently produce my work: the pamphlet, the video thumbnail designs, and some help on the website.’
Weaknesses
‘One of my major weaknesses is that I lack confidence and I rarely give out my own opinions. In my team, I mostly just listened and did what my other members told me. My members later realised too and tried to ask me if I had opinions from time to time, whenever we needed to make important decisions. But a few weeks and months later, I was still the same. But in a short period of time, I managed to be more confident during the meetings that we held, as my teammates always showed much support.
2. Reflection (25 Marks)
This section asks about how effective the team was in working towards its aims. A balanced reflection is expected, explaining in what ways teamworking was a strength and in what ways it was a limitation.
You need to reflect about working in a team, own role in the team and also about learning.
Sample- Reflecting about working in a team
‘Initially, we made productive use of our Global Perspective lessons to review and discuss, which accelerated progress. However, COVID-19 restrictions made conversing difficult. So, we planned and managed our time, allocating regular meeting slots through Zoom. Adopting a virtual meeting routine helped ease our stress and reduce workloads. We shared the work according to our strengths. Sometimes it was easy to be outspoken online when we would not have been in person. Teamwork at a distance is not easy. Any disputes were calmly settled, which cultivated creativity and mutual understanding.’
Sample – Reflecting on own role in the team
‘I took the position of the leader of this group project. I made our group’s Instagram posts and came up with most of both surveys’ questions. I did well with designing the posts for Instagram, as I was able to utilise the graphic design website ‘Canva’ to create easy-to-read and informative posts. The attractive nature of the posts would draw people in to read each group of information. For the second survey, I came up with good questions that people were able to answer easily. However, I am not proud that when a team member was struggling to find perspectives on the issue, I did not offer to help. I should have done.’
Sample – Reflecting about learning
Overall, you should reflect on the skills you have learned about teamworking and different perspectives on the topic and the issue you worked on.
An example of the skills learnt may be
‘I discovered that I can be a decent researcher, which is a skill that I thought I lacked. I found I have mediocre communication skills. I should have tried my level best to join all of the meetings.’
A more detailed reflection could be:
‘When I was doing my research for the project, I slowly realised that beauty stereotypes exist in all sorts of form regardless of which region you’re from or even your own religion. It seems that different regions and cultures have their own visions and perfect forms of beauty. For example, the ideal visions of beauty for India would be drastically different from that of beauty standards in Korea. However, I had never expected to find out that such stereotypes can actually be harmful to the society as it affects the mental health of numerous individuals. I learnt that it makes people feel really insecure about themselves and thus they spend thousands of dollars on plastic surgery just to make themselves look good. I found it shocking to see that some young teenagers in Korea aimed to have plastic surgery to improve their looks.’
3. Communication (25 marks)
Each student is expected to carry out personal research and report their individual findings towards an aspect of the topic. It is expected that findings are summarised and that evidence is cited in the bibliography.
You must clearly explain the evaluations, reflections and your works needs to be well organized in different sections.
Sample Team Projects
Here are some I’ve found:
https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/Images/576547-exploring-issues-of-consent-comic.pdf
https://vimeo.com/cambridgeintlexams/review/316766045/8338e8be44