ESL etc.

EarthPulse is a great website by National Geographic that provides an overview of many global issues. It starts with a series of essays by Thomas Hayden. He takes a much more strongly anti-consumerism stance than I expected from National Geographic.
…here we are, too far into the new century to pretend any longer that […]

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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 […]

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I just became aware of A Young People’s History of the United States,a version of Howard Zinn’s classic targeted towards younger readers. I haven’t seen the book myself yet, but I suspect that it would work well with English learners, too.

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Howard Zinn passed away on Wednesday. He is one of my favorite authors and educators, and he will certainly be missed.
Recently, Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change launched the Zinn Education Project, a collection of resources for teaching A People’s History of the United States. There are tons of great materials here for […]

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The Guardian has a visual representation of the words used in Obama’s 2010 State of the Union Address, as well as visualizations of earlier States of the Union. It’s interesting to see how things have changed over time. One obvious thing is how much more “America” and “Americans” feature in recent speeches, compared […]

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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 + […]

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Perhaps it’s just the collapse of Copenhagen, but this slideshow seems quite relevant this time of year. It addresses the consequences of travel, trees, gifts and food, among other things. Strangely, though, the food section does not mention anything about eating meat.
Sorry to be a scrooge!
Thanks Larry

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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 […]

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Eating Animals, the new book by Jonathon Safran Foer, is a very engaging, and wide ranging, look at the ethics of eating animals. He does a great job of exploring the various issues without reducing things to exaggerated extremes. He is a wonderful writer, and I think this book would be a very […]

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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. […]

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