My wife and I just watched a great documentary on PBS called My Life as a Turkey. It tells the story of naturalist and wildlife illustrator Joe Hutto and his experience as “mother” to a brood of wild turkeys. The video powerfully reveals the complex and sophisticated lives of wild turkeys. I think this should be required Thanksgiving viewing (preferably before dinner).

I’ve embedded the first chapter above, but you can watch the whole video for free on the PBS website. I would absolutely use this as part of a Thanksgiving lesson, or in a unit that addresses animal intelligence. In our program, we use the Quest series of books by McGraw-Hill. In Quest 1(which we use in some of our low-intermediate classes), there is a unit on biology that covers animal behavior, communication and learning. This video would fit in perfectly.

Thanks Krista

If I were teaching a class on business, I would absolutely include information on this protest. In my experience, it may come as a surprise to some students that the majority of Americans are not rich. This would fit in well with activities on the distribution of wealth. One of the groups involved in the protest, We Are the 99%, offers a powerful collection of photos and narratives by the poorer 99% of Americans. This would work well with graphs illustrating the fact that, while the wealthiest 1% have seen their real income more than double in the past few decades, the rest of America has seen little to no growth. And, of course, this problem is not uniquely American. Students could be invited to present information on the distribution of wealth in their countries, or in other countries that they research. It could also be fruitful to combine these with activities looking at the distribution of wealth between countries. Whatever the angle, articles on this protest would be a great addition to a unit on business, government or wealth and poverty.

If I were doing a unit on business or the economy, I would absolutely use materials from this site. Many of the readings are fairly short, and the language is pretty down to earth.

The RSA Animate series of video clips is an interesting way to present some very sophisticated ideas to learners. The visual nature of the lectures helps comprehension and helps hold student interest. The lecture above looks at how recent developments in cognitive science change our understanding of human nature. Other lectures deal with concepts like charity, choice, and education, just to name a few. In addition to the various content areas that these lectures could be used in, they would be a great addition to activities working on lecture listening and note taking.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find the RSA website so easy to navigate. For example, I couldn’t find a page that indexed all of the animated lectures. That said, there are many articles and other materials on the website that would be interesting to use in class, so poking around a bit is not a bad thing. If you’re looking for a shortcut, though, here is a search that highlights the RSA Animate lectures. Another approach is to browse through their YouTube channel, which includes many non-animated lectures as well.

Along the same lines, Yes Magazine has an article about 5 acts of performance-based protest. I’m not thrilled with the tone of the article (“laughtivism” seems overly reductive) but the events themselves are very interesting. For one thing, it is great to show students that activism has many different faces. I tend to emphasize the activism that we take in our everyday actions, and it is important show students the range of responses that are available.

The first is The Economics of Happiness.

This documentary links a number of global issues (climate change, terrorism, etc.) with personal issues (depression, loneliness, etc.). I haven’t seen the whole thing, but the trailer brings up a lot of great stuff: true cost economics, the wastefulness of our “efficiency” of scale, and the importance of local communities. For more information, there is a recent review in Yes Magazine.

The other movie (thanks Khalid) is I AM.

It’s directed by the director of The Nutty Professor and Ace Ventura and the trailer is a little melodramatic, but the premise is interesting. He went to a wide variety of people (including personal favorites like Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky) and asked them two questions:

1. What’s wrong with the world?
2. What can we do about it?

The ultimate conclusion seems to be that we are all very interconnected, and that we find happiness and health through taking care of each other. I think both of these movies (or at least clips from them) would work well in a unit on happiness and global issues.

For the last 40 years, ALEC has helped legislators draft conservative legislation and they claim that 18% of their bills end up as law. One recent victory was the controversial anti-immigration bill in Arizona. Cronon was curious to see if this group was also behind the recent anti-public-worker and anti-teacher legislation that has been cropping up throughout the country. Judging by the reaction of the GOP of Wisconsin, he seems to be on to something.

Following his post on ALEC, the Republican Party of Wisconsin made a request for access to Cronon’s emails, listing a number of politically-charged topics. Prof. Cronon explains it in this post, which is long but well worth the read. As a union-dues-paying faculty member at a public university in a state that also has strong Freedom of Information laws, I find this attempt by the Republican Party of Wisconsin to intimidate Prof. Cronon despicable. The anti-academic-freedom bias is troubling and quite hypocritical, coming from a group purportedly supporting individual liberty.

I’m not sure exactly how I would use this with students, but Prof. Cronon’s initial post on ALEC is presented as a study guide. It’s pretty high-level, but I would absolutely consider introducing these topics to a unit on politics or democracy. International students sometimes come to America with an idealized understanding of our democracy, without having considered the profound influence of corporate money. This would fit well with a look at the Tea Party and other astroturf organizations. It would also work alongside the video Corporations vs. Democracy.

Thanks USF-UFF

Like the Story of Stuff, this information is presented fairly simply, with an explanatory cartoon. Thus, I think it could be comprehensible to many English language learners. They also offer captions and an annotated script so students can read along. The video isn’t too long, either, at just over 8 minutes. Another nice thing about it is that, despite the fairly bleak picture, the tone remains mostly positive.

The lessons ask students to look at their own role in these issues, which I think is an important thing to do when addressing global issues. The readings are interesting, and not overly long or complicated. There is also a good variety of activities.

The only criticism I have is an apparent lack of awareness about issues relating to animals. For example, the handout “Hamburger, Fries and a Coke” in Unit 2 details the resources used in creating this stereotypically American meal. We are told about the fertilizer and water used for the grain to feed the cow, the gas used to ship the patties, and even about the poor working conditions at the slaughterhouse. At the same time, no mention is made of animal cruelty, the pollution runoff from factory farms, or the chemicals like hormones and antibiotics that the cows are pumped full of. To me, this is a strange omission.

Overall, though, I think this is a really useful set of lesson plans, and I’m not sure if the plan is to keep it free forever, so be sure to download it soon.