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GREENSBORO — Seated around a teardrop-shaped table, the little group talked about Judaism and Islam, science and math, microscopes and computers.

And when Google Maps found the Philippines, Nurjavier Abubakar rose from his seat and touched the southernmost island shown on the high-tech SMART Board display.

Just like that, the three educators from a private Muslim school reached across 9,063 miles and brought Cotabato City to their hosts at the American Hebrew Academy off Hobbs Road.

Part religious exchange, part educational discussion, part episode of MTV’s “Cribs,” the Filipinos toured the private Jewish boarding school’s 100-acre campus on Thursday morning as part of a trip organized by the U.S. State Department.

The three-week tour is designed to show international visitors the role of religious education and cultural diversity in America.

“It’s a chance to swap ideas,” said Barry Lewis of the State Department, who is escorting the Filipinos on the trip.

They spent the afternoon across town at Page High, the first public school on a U.S. tour that also includes stops in Washington; Buffalo, N.Y.; Tulsa, Okla.; and Los Angeles.

But the glimpse inside the walls of American Hebrew Academy — and the chance to talk with its Jewish educators — is something the Muslim teachers will not soon forget.

“It’s spectacular here,” Abubakar said at the end of a three-hour tour. “It’s the most beautiful campus we’ve visited. It’s the most beautiful campus we may ever visit.”

Abubakar, an administrator at an Islamic institute for children through fourth grade, wasn’t kidding.

He and his companions saw a green campus that does not allow cars. Instead, electric golf carts ferry visitors to and fro.

They saw a geothermal energy center — which heats and cools every campus building — enclosed beneath the stadium bleachers.

They saw an 88,000-square-foot athletics center where everything is state-of-the-art — from the surgical-grade vinyl floor coverings to the polycarbonate skylights. Inside is an Olympic-style swimming pool, a full-size basketball court and even a 25-foot rock-climbing wall.

They saw hothouses and gardens, built and tended by students.

The visitors saw classrooms designed for just 12 students and a teacher, and outfitted. Every student has a portable tablet computer that plugs into one of the classroom jacks.

Abubakar said he was impressed by all the gadgets. But that’s not what he’ll take back home.

“I’ve seen a lot of people and places,” he said. “We are an Islamic institution, of course, and I’m glad we’ve learned about some different religious groups.”

Abubakar said he and his colleagues found out that although the faiths are different, the faith-based approach of the two schools at opposite ends of the Earth is similar.

In the Philippines, his students study secular subjects in the morning and spend afternoons with the Quran.

American Hebrew Academy executive director Glenn Drew said his students’ curriculum is 75 percent college prep and 25 percent theological.

“There’s a commonality of people of faith that transcends this institution,” Drew said.

The academy begins its eighth school year today with 166 students — teenagers from 26 states and 10 foreign countries.

All of them are there for the same purpose, Rabbi Howard Cohen told the Filipino visitors.

“At the end of the day, our goal is to create good citizens,” said Cohen, a Jewish studies teacher. “We want them to go home and be good citizens in all the worlds in which they live.”

Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com