ESL etc.

The Institute for Humane Education has a great collection of activities, many of which could be used with English language learners. Most of them are aimed at younger learners, but many could also be used effectively with adults. I haven’t yet had a chance to go through the whole site, but I took […]

[Read more →]

A couple of weeks ago, George Monbiot wrote the speech that Obama should give at Copenhagen. Needless to say, that speech was not given. Still, it could be used as an interesting way to bring the failed climate summit into a class. It could even be a way to practice should + […]

[Read more →]

I just saw this photo essay looking at farming in America. It was done as a Thanksgiving piece in the New York Times, and looks at a variety of food-related issues, albeit in a fairly simple way. I like the fact that it focuses on students, though (including a neat project called The […]

[Read more →]

One Man’s Trash is a neat article in the NY Times about Phoenix Commotion, a construction company run by Dan Phillips that makes low-income housing using discarded building materials and other types of “trash”. The article isn’t too long, and could easily be used as part of an activity on consumerism or natural building. […]

[Read more →]

ACT Responsible is a Swiss non-profit that attempts to use the talents of advertisers to address environmental sustainability and social responsibility. Their gallery is full of images and short videos that could be great visual prompts for activities on a wide variety of issues. For starters, check out highlights in The Best Adverts […]

[Read more →]

I was recently asked for suggestions for materials that could be used with younger learners. Here are a few of my favorites.

Facing the Future has a collection of activity-based, global issues lesson plans for students of all ages. In addition to the great stuff they offer for sale, they have a ton of […]

[Read more →]

Worldmapper has a large collection of world maps that display various issues in a simple yet effective way. They expand each country to illustrate their share in a given issue. For example, the map below illustrates each country’s proportion of the world’s child labor.
Worldmapper has maps on many, many topics, including poverty, gender […]

[Read more →]

The summer 2009 issue of Rethinking Schools is based around the theme of environmental justice, and lots of the articles are available free on their website.
Highlights include The Big One an article by Bill Bigelow (author of Rethinking Globalization) on teaching about climate change. The article includes a description of several climate change activities, […]

[Read more →]

As Earth Day approaches, one topic that is often left out of the discussion is environmental racism. Teaching Tolerance has three lesson plans designed for different grade levels.

Fair is Fair (K-5) is a good introduction to the concept for children.
Progressive City Planners (6-8) puts students in the role of urban designers, and includes some […]

[Read more →]

I just read a great article on a very interesting activity that a college anthropology professor does with a few hundred students in a lecture class.
He breaks them into groups of about 20, and assigns each group a culture. They spend a few weeks preparing, and the class culminates in the World Sim activity […]

[Read more →]