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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I’m a fan of statistics as conversation / writing prompts, and Worldometers features a bunch of interesting stats. The main page provides real-time stats on a variety of issues, including consumption (military expenses, car production etc.), the environment (CO2 emissions, forest loss, etc.) and food (number of overweight people, number of people who […]

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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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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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Bloom offers a collection of actions that individuals can take to reduce their contribution to climate change. It’s visually interesting, and features actions in categories like food, shopping, travel and water. The language is fairly accessible, although some of the action explanations are not as clear as they could be. This would […]

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The International School Studies Association at the University of Denver has a large collection of links to lesson plans that deal with global issues. They break them down thematically (Cultural Studies, Environmental Studies, Economics, etc.) and by grade level. There are tons of lessons available here, so there are bound to be some […]

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In The Startling Effects of Going Vegetarian for Just One Day, Kathy Freston gives a variety of interesting statistics on the consequences of all Americans not eating meat for just one day. Any serious discussion of climate change has to include diet, and this short article could be a great starting point.
Some highlights:
If everyone […]

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Larry Ferlazzo recently posted a brief summary of a variety of cause-related online games. I’ve posted about free rice and free poverty before, but a bunch of the other ones are new to me. I’m not sure how reliable the claims of charitable donations from the various sites are, but they are worth […]

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