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Global Themes

 

The Year of Conservation: 2026-2027

Artwork by Lincoln Itzler ’33.

What is worth protecting—and who gets to decide? 

That question sits at the center of Pace Academy’s 2026-2027 Isdell Center for Global Leadership (ICGL) annual theme: Conservation. Throughout the school year, students across all three divisions are exploring conservation through age-appropriate curriculum, hands-on field research, sessions with visiting experts, Minimester coursework and international study tours. 

In the Lower School, students are building foundational awareness, examining how individual choices ripple across the global environment. Middle School students are expanding their focus to analyze the larger systems and structures that impact environmental stewardship, while Upper School students are taking a global approach, tackling complex conservation issues both in Atlanta and abroad.

“Conservation challenges us to think about how we balance innovation and growth with our responsibility to ecosystems, cultures and communities,” says ICGL Director Trish Anderson. “We want our students to wrestle with those tensions, ask difficult questions and consider how the choices they make today can help shape a more thoughtful and sustainable future.”

Student leadership drives the campus conversation throughout the year, with Upper School ICGL Council members and ICGL Fellows leading peer forums, launching schoolwide sustainability initiatives and sharing research findings.

Curiosity in Action: Our Essential Questions

Across campus, division-specific questions guide conservation-related conversations:

Our 2026-2027 Isdell Global Leaders

Meet the student crew blazing a green trail for 2026-2027. Selected through a highly competitive application process, Hiruni Manawadu ’28, Bayli Richardson ’27, Noah Sender ’28 and Jack Spires ’28 are stepping up as Isdell Global Leaders (IGLs). 

In the fall of 2026, the IGLs will stay close to home, joining ICGL Director Trish Anderson and Associate Director Tatum Branaman on a conservation journey through coastal Georgia. Starting in the Okefenokee Swamp, the cohort will travel through Cumberland Island, St. Marys, Brunswick, Darien, Sapelo Island and the Harris Neck Wildlife Refuge, stopping at Skidaway before wrapping up in Savannah. Along the way, they will explore how communities can live, work, innovate, and grow while safeguarding the vital ecological and cultural systems that sustain them. 

Their year of exploration will conclude in the spring with a second study tour—destination TBD.

Meet ICGL Visiting Scholar Luca Martinez

Pace welcomes filmmaker and environmental storyteller LUCA MARTINEZ as the 2026-2027 ICGL Visiting Scholar.

Martinez has captured international attention through his breathtaking underwater photography and docu-style storytelling in the Florida Everglades. By bringing audience eyes beneath the surface of fragile, often-misunderstood wetlands, he turns ecological data into vivid emotional connections.

During his time on campus, Martinez is collaborating with students across divisions, sharing how media, art and technology can be leveraged to defend threatened habitats and give a voice to wild spaces.