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Many artists create work that intersects with political activism and social justice causes. Throughout history, art has been used as an accessible tool for communication, raising awareness about social issues and affecting positive change.

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Learning about local activism empowers students by helping them understand the wide variety of possibilities for affecting change, beginning in their own communities. This lesson introduces students to a movement for disability rights that integrated visual arts and community activism.

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Not your everyday calendar, here you can find important events in literary history, authors' birthdays, and a variety of holidays, all with related activities and resources that make them more relevant to students.

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Not your everyday calendar, here you can find important events in literary history, authors' birthdays, and a variety of holidays, all with related activities and resources that make them more relevant to students.

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QR Code Generator for URL, vCard, and more. Add logo, colors, frames, and download in high print quality. Get your free QR Codes now!

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Maryland SPCA - Feel the Warmth of a Cold Nose™

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The Maryland SPCA's mission is to improve the lives of pets and people in the community. There is never a time limit for how long an animal can remain in our care. We receive no operating funds from the ASPCA. We rely on donations to continue our work. Your support saves lives!

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Educational Resources

The Rainforest in Costa Rica is uniquely biodiverse-an ecological Noah's ark for modern times. With less than the landmass found in the state of West Virginia (19,730 mi²), Costa Rica plays host to some of the most important ecosystems in the world. The forest also protects hundreds of unique bird species, 91 of which (like the Baltimore oriole) we find summering in our own North American back yards.
Unparalleled Biodiversity
Did you know the Children's Eternal Rainforest protects more biodiversity than most places on earth, including:

154 species of amphibians and reptiles

121 kinds of mammals

450 bird species

3,000 different kinds of plants including 800 species of trees and 500 types of orchids

1 million insect species

Costa Rica boasts 5% of the world's species diversity in an area that's smaller than West Virginia! We are committed to protecting these creatures and their habitat.

Continue reading "Educational Resources"

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Educational Resources The Rainforest in Costa Rica is uniquely biodiverse-an ecological Noah's ark for modern times. With less than the landmass found in the state of West Virginia (19,730 mi²), Costa Rica plays host to some of the most important ecosystems in the world.

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GoFundMe: #1 In Free Fundraising & Crowdfunding Online

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GoFundMe: The most trusted free online fundraising platform. Start a successful crowdfunding campaign on the site with over $5 Billion Raised. Read our guarantee!

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Find government information on education including primary, secondary, and higher education.

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Do you know why we call our planet, Mother Earth?

There's a blue little planet floating in outer space. It's the 3 rd planet from the sun. It's very special. Right now, it's the only planet in the solar system that shows signs of Intelligent Life. It has everything life needs to flourish: water, sunlight, oxygen and a very stable inner core. This planet is our Mother Earth.

We call it Mother Earth because like our own mothers, it takes care of us and sustains us. It gives us water to drink, food to eat and air to breathe.

Are we loving it back the way we should be doing?

How is Mother Earth doing?

Right now, our planet is not doing so well. Our population has boomed and there is an estimated 7.3 billion people living on Earth.... And growing.

Read More: Global Warming Definition for Kids

With that number of people, it follows that there are more people who use Mother Earth's natural resources. We need more water, more fish and animals to eat and more land to live on. We mine more minerals, fossil fuel and oil. As our lifestyles become more advanced, we use up more energy, produce more trash and release more pollution into the atmosphere. 7.3 billion people need MORE from Mother Earth. The fact is, our planet cannot replenish the natural resources faster than we take it - and there are some resources, like water and oil, that cannot be replenished at all. Once we use it all up.... It's gone.

What we're doing to our environment

U.S companies alone use up enough paper to encircle the Earth 3x

Rainforest are being cut down at a rate of 100 acres a day

When we cut down a whole forest of trees, we damage whole ecosystems that sustain thousands of species of plants and animals.

Before we started to build cities, our planet was 60% forest. Now there's around 10% left and we might lose them all in 100 years.

Read More: What is pollution for kids?

Trees help absorb the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Each year, human activities release around 37 billion tons of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than in the last 800,000 years

Due to the high amount of carbon dioxide, our planet is getting warmer. Temperatures have risen by 1.4 degrees F or 0.8 degrees Celsius in the last 100 years. If the planet warms up a couple of degrees more, the polar ice caps and sea ice will melt

When all the frozen ice melts, the sea levels will rise and flood all the cities near the ocean.... And that's most of our major cities.

These are just some examples. There are lots more.

Check out our other articles about the environment and find out what you can do in your own little way.

We need to heal Mother Earth for your generation and those who will come after you.

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There's a blue little planet floating in outer space. It's the 3 rd planet from the sun. It's very special. Right now, it's the only planet in the solar system that shows signs of Intelligent Life. It has everything life needs to flourish: water, sunlight, oxygen and a very stable inner core.

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Retell: Lucas constantly gets picked on by the neighborhood bully. He takes out his frustration on the ants in front of his house. The ants decide to take revenge and teach Lucas a lesson.

Topics: bullying, revenge, ants

Units of Study: Fantasy

Tribes: mutual respect

Reading Skills: analyzing character motivation, interpretation

Writing Skills: experimenting with sentence structure

Thoughts: Apparently this story was made into an animated movie back in 2006. I guess I've been out of the loop.

This is a great read aloud for teaching about karma, the Golden Rule and the basic concept of treating others (even non-humans) with respect. It's also a great mentor text for students writing fantasy stories. The structure is short and simple enough to mirror the fantasy stories that upper grade students may be writing. It's also great for demonstrating how stories can be structured around teaching the reader a lesson.

Unfortunately, it looks like this book is out of print. Definitely worth a trip to your local library.

Topics: trees, deforestation, environment, environmentalists, pollution, consumption, greed, factories, habitat, animals, Earth Day

Units of Study: Social Issues, Content Area, Talking and Writing About Texts

Tribes: Mutual Respect

Reading Skills: inference, interpretation

Writing Skills: incorporating rhyme and rhythm, connecting the beginning with its ending

My Thoughts: I recently read this book to my class to celebrate Earth Day. There were misty eyes when the last truffula tree was cut down; I have never heard the room so quiet. Upon rereading I noticed how well the illustrations supported inferential thinking throughout the story. Specifically, the color of the illustrations helps support the idea that without trees the world is a dark, miserable place. In the beginning of the story, the pages are illustrated in dark tones: navy, burgundy, and gray. When the Once-ler flashes back to the first days of his Thneed venture, the illustrations are painted in bright, cheerful hues: magenta, yellow, green and turquoise. One student pointed out toward the beginning of the story, while the illustrations were still bright and cheery, the Once-ler's materials were painted in dark tones, a premonition that the environment was going to change for the worse.

Topics: dance, war, family, Mexico, immigration, art, music, English, Spanish, death, New York, California

Units of Study: Nonfiction, Social Issues

Tribes: personal best, appreciations/no put-downs, mutual respect

Habits of Mind: persisting

Reading Skills: synthesis, monitoring for sense, envisionment

Writing Skills: using sound effects, zooming in on a small moment

My Thoughts: This text has multiple teaching purposes. It's a great text for introducing or reinforcing the habit of mind-persistence. There are many moments in the story when Jose persists. He struggles to learn English but persists despite his cruel classmates. He is determined to become a dancer and shows persistence each day during rehearsal despite sore, aching muscles. During the read aloud we can hope that students understand that successful people, no matter what their focus, work hard and persist, even when they face adversity.

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Retell: Lucas constantly gets picked on by the neighborhood bully. He takes out his frustration on the ants in front of his house. The ants decide to take revenge and teach Lucas a lesson.

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Search engines can streamline the process of teaching basic research to elementary schoolchildren who require expert guidance on how to navigate the Web - and the earlier, the better.

Elementary school is when kids first begin to learn how to learn. Kids start using search engines quite early on, making elementary school the perfect time to teach research skills that become a foundation for a lifetime of learning.

The base skill for all schoolchildren is the ability to sift content for relevance and accuracy. Here are five ways teachers can help improve this skill in elementary-age children.

1. Define the task

What exactly must be researched? It's very easy to get lost if children do not know precisely what they are looking for. In elementary school the subjects may be relatively simple, but they still must be defined accurately to aid in the search.

Teachers should talk with students about what they will be looking for and how to get specific results. The more specific they can get, the easier it will be to come up with search terms.

2. Discover keywords

Elementary school students may not fully grasp the concept of keywords, so they'll need to be instructed in this foundational aspect of search technology. Search engines perform well only if correct keywords are used, and students need to learn how to come up with those words to get the results they need.

Keywords are typically based upon the most common approach to discussing a subject. Often, it will take some trial and error to discover just what keyword combination yields the desired results. Teachers can create a whole lesson around keywords, including what they are, how they work and how to find them.

3. Use appropriate tools

Google and Bing are probably the most popular search engines, but they may not be the best for teaching research skills to young people. Teacher Mary Beth Hertz recommends one of the more popular search engines for students, Sweet Search, whose results are screened by experts. Using something like Sweet Search may make it easier to teach research skills by weeding out a lot of the chaff that so often comes up on the more popular engines.

4. Teach about source hierarchy and evaluation

Elementary students can comprehend the tiers of legitimacy related to information-gathering. Teachers can explain about primary sources, original research and the reliability of information found on the Web. Kids can learn about how information travels from research papers to news sources to blogs and so on.

By going through examples, teachers can demonstrate the way various information sources find their information and present it to the public, and how to determine which information is best to use for their projects.

Children may not need to cite abstracts from scientific research papers, but they can learn to seek information more intelligently.

5. Take notes and compile information

The complexity of note-taking skills will depend on the students' grade level, but even kids in the younger grades can learn to take pencil to paper and record the most important pieces of information they gather. The better they get at finding quality sources, the easier the note-taking will become.

Students should also learn how to cite their sources appropriately.

Setting up a lifelong skill

Learning research skills at a young age will give students a skill that will serve them over a lifetime. This skill will not only be useful in school, but in their everyday lives as they attempt to absorb ever-increasing amounts of information. Teachers will do their students a great service in teaching these skills.

Learn More: Click to view related resources. Tags: Early Childhood and Elementary (Grades: PreK-5), Engaging Activities

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Teaching Research Skills to Elementary School Children

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Search engines can streamline the process of teaching basic research to elementary schoolchildren who require expert guidance on how to navigate the Web - and the earlier, the better. Elementary school is when kids first begin to learn how to learn.

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Lesson Plans for Making Students Better Online Researchers

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Lesson Plans for Making Students Better Online Researchers

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Your students have to complete a certain project with the help of online research on the Шnternet. It would seem that entering a phrase in a Google search is not difficult. But how truthful will the information that appears on the first pages be? Is this enough to complete the task? Not likely. That is why students must become better online researchers.

What should be kept in mind during online research?

Formulation of a search query for search engines.

What search results will be really useful?

Checking the information for veracity and relevance.

How to analyze and use the obtained data.

Rules for citing a source.

What exercises can teach your students to search and filter data?

1) Refinement of search phrases

Morrison's 2016 research found that 80% of students rarely or never made a list of possible search words. Time spent defining the problem can lead to a more efficient and streamlined research process. You can have a class discussion or a small group conference to research keywords, consider synonyms or alternative phrases, write questions, etc.

2) Search

You need to explain to students that the quality of the phrases that are entered into Google, Yahoo, or other systems will determine the quality of their results. Enter some simple search terms using only important keywords. If initial results don't match your expectations, change your search terms to be more specific. Use quotation marks if you want your keywords to be in exact order.

3) Studying the results

Students can try to look beyond the first few results. Most website owners understand the importance of SEO and use it to improve the position of their pages in search. However, it does not necessarily mean that they are the most useful or relevant sites for you. In addition, a 2016 Stanford University study found that 82% of high school students can't tell the difference between an ad labeled "sponsored content" and the real news. Work on it.

4) Data analysis

Students need to know how to search for the specific information they need on a website. Teach them how to look for a search box on a web page or use Ctrl + F. Check if students understand that you can't believe everything you read. This may include checking multiple sources.

5) Quoting a source

Plagiarism and copyright infringement must be avoided. Students can be shown how to describe the data in their own words and cite the source of data. For example, if they find information on Wikipedia, they need to link to the bibliography at the bottom of the article.

Our world is getting more and more saturated with information. So, it's definitely worth spending some time learning the rules of online research. Optimize your lessons, prepare examples that you will work with students and homework assignments that they will complete. The results of their work will show how effective your instructions were.

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Lesson Plans for Making Students Better Online Researchers

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Your students have to complete a certain project with the help of online research on the Шnternet. It would seem that entering a phrase in a Google search is not difficult. But how truthful will the information that appears on the first pages be? Is this enough to complete the task?

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Doing Internet Research at the Elementary Level

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Doing Internet Research at the Elementary Level

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Prices shown reflect an Educator's Discount, available on Print with Digital subscriptions when ordering for 10* or more students and on Digital-Only subscriptions for 20 or more students. (*For 5 or more students when ordering My Big World, Let's Find Out, and/or Let's Find Out Spanish.) For smaller Print with Digital subscription orders, please call 1-800-SCHOLASTIC. You are authorized to distribute online access only to the number of students for whom you have purchased subscriptions. You are not permitted to share passwords, access codes, or any login information with nonsubscribers. Sales tax added to invoices where required by law. A 10% shipping and handling charge will be added to your entire order for all Print with Digital subscriptions.

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Scholastic Art | Scholastic Classroom Magazines

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Prices shown reflect an Educator's Discount, available on Print with Digital subscriptions when ordering for 10* or more students and on Digital-Only subscriptions for 20 or more students. (*For 5 or more students when ordering My Big World, Let's Find Out, and/or Let's Find Out Spanish.)

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Social justice may seem very much like a buzzword lately, but that's because it encompasses a great many ideas. The easiest definition presumes that everyone deserves equal economic, political, and social rights and opportunities. Teaching children that everyone is deserving of such things means teaching them to value diversity and all people. Instead of tackling all those things at once, however, it's best to choose themes based on the questions that children are asking.

American students are plugged in more than ever, and modern parenting has become both a thing to use and a concept to understand. If I had a dime for every time a parent told me their child didn't have a particular account or app (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc ...), I'd be as wealthy as an app development executive. What I continue to impress upon parents is that kids have these apps, and that a great many of them are "underground." All of that leads to kids being exposed to much more than they may be ready for and having a great many questions about the world around them.

When talking to children about major news events like Ferguson, Missouri and Mike Brown, it's important to first ask them what they know. Teachers use this process prior to embarking on a new topic by using a KWL chart: tell what you tell what you Want to know, and finally, upon completion, tell what you've Learned. Sometimes, as parents, we can tell our children too much when all they wanted was the basics.

It's also important to figure out which concept they're trying to understand when it comes to social justice. Is it the acceptance of others and their individuality? Or are they trying to come to grips with issues of gender inequality? Are they watching the news and seeing a conflict in which peace is elusive? With each of those specific examples, it would be silly to give a pat answer because those issues are very different and require special language.

Art teacher, Sarah Ryder, compiled a fantastic art resource for teaching the following themes of social justice:

Acceptance of Others/Individuality
Kindness to Others
Environmental Awareness
Understanding of Other Cultures
Developing Peace
Gender and Families
Economic Equality

With each specific topic, Sarah has also offered multiple book titles to accompany them for parents interested in taking the conversation to the next level, as well as art projects post-reading. My favorite thing about this idea is that she encourages her students to express themselves in an art form once they're confronted with social injustice. It's a great place to put energy. (This is also true for adults! Look how much art comes out of social injustice!)

Another resource for kids wanting to understand a current social justice issue is the #FergusonSyllabus created by Dr. Marcia Chatelain, author of South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration. This great resource is from the librarian/review site called and is titled Ferguson, Race, Civil Rights, Social Activism, and YA Fiction: A Round-Up of Reading. If your teen or pre-teen is asking questions that you feel inadequate answering fully or if you feel as though teaching them requires more than you're comfortable with, any of these resources is a good place to start.

Kids care about fairness and social justice, and their brains are busy doing the work of categorizing and understanding it all. Whatever you do, just talk and listen. There will be no shortage of conversation on this topic.

Fondazione Cariplo [ CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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How to Talk to Children about Ferguson and Social Justice

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Social justice may seem very much like a buzzword lately, but that's because it encompasses a great many ideas. The easiest definition presumes that everyone deserves equal economic, political, and social rights and opportunities. Teaching children that everyone is deserving of such things means teaching them to value diversity and all people.

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Here are more than 90 carefully selected lists of multicultural and social justice books for children, young adults, and educators. We partner with Bookshop. New Activism and Organizing Africa Afro-Latinx American Indians Arabs and Arab Americans Art

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Ask teachers to describe the impact they hope to have on their students, and most will eventually say something along these lines: I want my students to grow into responsible citizens. I want my students to participate in society in an active, productive way.

And maybe: I want my students to change the world.

But how many of us know how to make that happen, really? Can we explicitly teach students how to change the world? If this question has been whispering in the back of your mind, the resources in this collection will help.

What is social justice, and how does it fit into the curriculum?

The National Association of Social Workers defines social justice as "the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities." To study social justice is to learn about the problems that dramatically impact quality of life for certain populations, and how people have worked to solve those problems.

If you teach social studies, you'll have no trouble finding direct curricular links to social justice. The National Curriculum Standards for the Social Studies includes Civic Ideals and Practices as one of its 10 Themes of Social Studies, and this includes an emphasis on learning how to get involved in influencing public policy. In history and social studies class, social justice teaching is a natural fit.

In other content areas, teachers disagree over whether social justice has a place. We put ourselves in a vulnerable position by exploring issues that are seen as more controversial than others (a topic I will get into in the next section), and some teachers prefer to completely steer clear of those kinds of complications. For others, social justice was a driving force in why they became teachers, and they weave it into whatever content they are teaching. If you choose to address some or all of these issues in your classroom, the next section offers some tips for doing it effectively.

Some Advice for Teaching Social Justice

As an undergraduate, I served as a student counselor for three years and a resident assistant (RA) for one. I regularly delivered workshops on social justice topics, and I learned a few important lessons along the way. Here are some things to keep in mind when studying social justice issues with your students:

Make getting to know students a key component of any social justice teaching. If you and your students don't spend time examining your own backgrounds, biases, and beliefs, you will be missing an essential component of any social justice curriculum. We all view every social justice issue through the lens of our own experience, and these different lenses can block our growth and learning if we aren't aware of them. If we fine-tune our self-awareness, our individual lenses can richly inform classroom conversations and help us understand issues on a much deeper level, directly from each other.

Know that not all students feel the same way about these issues. Most, if not all, of these resources have been created from a pretty liberal, progressive viewpoint. For example, one of the lessons in the Learning for Justice (formerly known as Teaching Tolerance) series described below is on Confronting Unjust Laws. The lesson uses California's Proposition 8 as an example of an unjust law. But not all of your students (or their families) will see a law like Prop 8 as unjust. In fact, some may strongly oppose same-sex marriage. That doesn't mean you can't talk about controversial issues; in fact, teaching students how to respectfully discuss an issue with people who don't see things the same way is a lesson that will serve them for the rest of their lives.

Familiarize yourself with the material before teaching. Sometimes we just skim materials before we teach. With social justice topics, this would be a mistake. Not knowing exactly what's in all of your teaching materials, including the texts or videos you and your students will be looking at, can leave you vulnerable to problems when unexpected content pops up.

Keep your administrator in the loop. As with any potentially controversial lesson, it is essential that you talk to your administrator about it ahead of time. Show the curricular connections between your planned lessons and the standards you're teaching. Talk about potential problems or objections that may come up and how you both plan to address them. That way, if your administrator gets a phone call from a concerned parent, she or he won't be blindsided.

Featured Resources

When I set out to find good resources for social justice teaching, I was looking for classroom-ready materials, lesson plans with supplementary texts or videos that would prompt students to learn about, think about, and talk about social justice issues. I also hoped to find some that would actually teach students about activism, about how a citizen zeroes in on a problem, formulates a solution, then does the grassroots work necessary to see that solution come to life.

Some of these resources fit the bill perfectly, especially the first one on the list. Others do not include lesson plans at all, but serve such an important and innovative role in social justice education, I thought they were essential to include here.

Learning for Justice

This award-winning organization (formerly known as Teaching Tolerance) comes up most often any time social justice teaching is discussed. There's lots to explore on their site, including the Classroom Resources section, which is loaded with lesson plans and other resources teachers can use for free in their classrooms. One of these lessons is Confronting Unjust Practices, where students learn about the anti-segregation actions taken by the Freedom Riders and the attack on one of these buses in Anniston, Alabama (pictured above).

Other lessons from this library include What is Ageism?, Unequal Unemployment, and What Makes a Family? Lessons are available for elementary, middle, and high school students.

DoSomething.org

No lesson plans here: DoSomething.org is an outstanding organization whose goal is to support the work of young people who want to make a difference in their world. Students browse through a big list of campaigns, public education and activism projects students can launch right in their own communities, and choose one or more that they'd like to participate in. Once they have finished a campaign, students submit a photo or video to prove they completed the required steps. This entry makes them eligible to win prizes, including scholarships. Currently, only U.S. students are eligible for these scholarships, but DoSomething.org is expanding into other countries as well.

Although this site will not help you do any direct instruction about social justice, it provides incredible opportunities for students to actively participate in social justice projects. Most campaigns are just right for high school students, and some would be appropriate for middle schoolers as well. Some topics may be considered risque, so review the content before introducing it to students.

On a related note, DoSomething.org is the organization where Katia Gomez, the college student who started her own school in Honduras (featured in the first Cult of Pedagogy documentary last year), got her start. One more bit of trivia that totally doesn't matter but might if you are a Melrose Place fan: DoSomething.org was co-founded by 90's heartthrob Andrew Shue. Squeee!!

The Global Oneness Project

The Global Oneness Project offers a beautiful collection of multicultural films, photo essays, and articles that "explore cultural, social, and environmental issues with a humanistic lens." Many of the featured stories are paired with a lesson plan for high school or college classrooms, aligned with Common Core and national standards.

One such pairing starts with the film Amar, which follows a young Indian boy living in a high-poverty neighborhood through a typical day that includes rising before dawn to do one of his two jobs and attending school. The accompanying lesson plan is called A Day in the Life, which has students examine the film and other resources related to the economic situation in India.

The films are truly stunning. This collection doesn't include explicit teachings in any kind of civics or grassroots activism, but it will provide students with a deep understanding of lives completely unlike their own. And that kind of empathy is one of the most important building blocks for any kind of social justice action.

Pushing the Edge: Social Justice Resources Collection

Educator Greg Curran's podcast covers a range of educational topics, but quite a few episodes circle around issues of social justice. Recently, he curated these resources into a Social Justice Resources Collection. These episodes will be mainly useful for teachers to educate themselves about social justice education: what complications and questions come up, helpful do's and don'ts, and why it's worth it. He interviews practicing teachers and administrators who are walking the walk with social justice teaching. Listening to them will give you a template from which to build your own practice.

Here's an example of one episode, where Curran interviews Nakisha Hobbs, principal of the Village Leadership Academy, a k-8 social justice school in Chicago.

GLSEN: Educator Resources

For teachers who want to include consideration of LGBT issues in their study of social justice, a great source for materials is GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network. offers a nice collection of educator guides and lesson plans.

Here are a few examples: The ThinkB4YouSpeak Guide for Educators includes lesson plans, resources, and tips for teachers for addressing anti-LGBT language in the 6-12 classroom. Unheard Voices is a collection of audio interviews with "individuals who bore witness to or helped shape LGBT history in some way." And the Day of Silence Guide shows educators how to run a Day of Silence awareness campaign in their schools.

Educational Video Center

I love this idea: The Educational Video Center teaches students the skills of documentary filmmaking, telling important stories in the name of social justice. Although the EVC holds after-school workshops only for students in New York City, they do offer professional development for teachers anywhere who want to learn how to teach these skills to their own students.

Alumni of the EVC have created documentaries on everything from criminal justice to domestic violence to mental health. You can view a collection of trailers for student-created documentaries here.

The Two Dollar Challenge

The Two Dollar Challenge is a challenge issued to people who want to make an impact on poverty. The challenge is simple: For 5 days, live on just $2 per day, publicizing the complexities of global poverty and helping to raise funds for a partner organization.

What's most striking about this organization is their emphasis on cultivating a deep respect for people affected by poverty and raising participants' awareness of their own privilege. One look at the project's code of conduct shows just how serious they are about that mission: "At all times participants must respect those nearby who are truly in need. If at any time those taking the Challenge are using resources which are valuable for indigent residents in the area this action must be re-evaluated."

Anti-Defamation League

The ADL's collection of lesson plans explore topics in categories like gender issues, sexism, ableism, religious bigotry, and racism. For example, What is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?, a lesson for high school students, has students study and discuss the impact of zero-tolerance policies in schools, statistics on the connection between school suspensions and the juvenile justice system, and their own school discipline policy. The end of the lesson offers students a choice of next steps for taking action on this issue. Lessons are available for preschool through high school.

Update: Since publishing this post, a few readers have pointed out that some of ADL's other website content (separate from this curriculum) takes a strong stance on issues relating to Israel and may offend some users. I still feel that this curriculum contains incredibly valuable lessons on very recent events that you won't find anywhere else, but this reinforces my second and third points above: Know your audience, and read through the materials carefully. For more details on this issue, please read the comments below. This article may also shed some light on the topic.

Further Reading

Stirring Up Justice
Laurel Schmidt, Education Leadership, May 2009
Explores the value and process of teaching students about activism. Offers a template for how to engage students in authentic conversations about difficult issues, ask themselves what they can do about social justice issues, consider ways they have already acted in the past, study how other kids and young adults have successfully solved problems, and participate in their own social justice projects.

Turning Current Events Into Social Justice Teaching
Jinnie Spiegler, Edutopia, January 6, 2016
Spiegler, the curriculum director for the Anti-Defamation League (the first resource in this post) offers advice on teaching social justice topics in a way that's both sensitive and productive.

Educolor Resources
Educolor, an organization dedicated to an equitable, just education for everyone, maintains this list of books, movies, articles, and websites that will educate teachers and students on issues of social justice, especially as it pertains to educational equity.

The Best Teacher Resources Sites for Social Justice
Larry Ferlazzo, Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day, July 1, 2008
A big list of resources related to social justice education.
What Are Your Favorite Social Justice Resources?
This is by no means an exhaustive list. If you have a resource you like to use for teaching about social justice, please share it in the comments below. ♦

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A Collection of Resources for Teaching Social Justice

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Want your students to actively engage in addressing inequality? Explore this annotated bibliography of resources for teaching students about social justice.

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Social justice is the view that everyone deserves to enjoy the same economic, political and social rights, regardless of race, socioeconomic status, gender or other characteristics. Teaching social justice in the classroom is crucial for preparing young people to become responsible global citizens in the 21st century.

Numerous resources and Web sites provide tips and activities for helping students reflect upon social justice issues in the classroom. Here are 10 great activities that will get kids at different grade levels thinking about human rights and our responsibility to take care of each other.

1. Lemon peel (grades 3-8): Give a lemon to each student and ask them to "get to know" their lemons. Have them look for any identifying marks, shape, brightness of the lemon, etc. Then, take the lemons, put them in a basket and have the students find their lemon. Students should not have trouble with this. The next day, peel the lemons and have the students attempt to find their lemons again in the basket. This will teach them that although we look different on the outside, we are the same on the inside.

2. "This is Our House" (grades K-3): Assign students to read, or read to them, This is Our House by Michael Rosen. In this book, George, the main character, creates a cardboard box. When other children come and try to play in the box, George turns them away for their outward characteristics. The story teaches students that everyone looks different and it is hurtful when others are treated poorly because they are a girl, have red hair, etc. Have kids create their own "cardboard box," and have everyone go inside it.

3. Face-to-face (grades 3-6): Place students in pairs and have them observe and interview each other. Have students list their differences as well as similarities. See if these attributes are external or internal, and discuss this with the class. Students should leave the activity realizing that it's important to respect and celebrate human differences.

4. Draw a picture (grades 2-4): Gender stereotyping is common in the workplace and in society. Have students draw pictures that represent different professions, such as construction worker or teacher. Collect the drawings and add up how many men or women were represented in each drawing. Use the data to discuss how gender roles and societal expectations impact individuals' employment opportunities.

5. Art and Social Justice: What is a Portrait? (grades K-5): This lesson helps children start thinking about what a portrait can show about race and racial stereotypes, and how portraitists might reinforce or fight against stereotypes through their art.

6. Timeline of school integration (grades 4-6): By using this timeline, students will learn about the ongoing quest to integrate schools, beginning as early as 1849 and continuing until today. This will raise social awareness about segregation and teach kids that regardless of race, every person has the right to a quality education.

7. I See You, You See Me: Body Image and Social Justice (grades K-5): This series help students think about their bodies and body images in a social justice context. Each lesson looks at a different aspect of the relationship children have with their bodies.

8. Reading Ads with a Social Justice Lens (Grade Level K-5) Children are surrounded - and targeted - by advertisements: on television, the computer, even on their journeys to and from school

9. Native American influences on U.S. history and culture (grades 3-5): Give students this pop quiz to help them learn more about what Native Americans contributed to our culture.

10. Can girls be plumbers? (grades 2-4): Teach about gender stereotypes, roles and career choices. Provide photos of both men and women and a list of different jobs. Have kids use the photographs to create a display with the photos on one side and the corresponding jobs on the other. See what the students match up, and then discuss.

Article by Kassondra Granata, EducationWorld Contributor
Education World®
Copyright © 2020 Education World

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10 Social Justice Activities for Students | Education World

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Social justice is the view that everyone deserves to enjoy the same economic, political and social rights, regardless of race, socioeconomic status, gender or other characteristics. Teaching social justice in the classroom is crucial for preparing young people to become responsible global citizens in the 21st century.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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The True Media Foundation (TMF) mission is to produce media with positive social impact. Focused on global citizenship, we produce media that educates and entertains-commonly referred to as "Edutainment." To pursue this goal, we offer nonprofit youth programs that give high school students real-world learning experiences, provide nonprofit media services to other organizations to assist with their fundraising, awareness and training goals and collaborate with like-minded organizations to produce events and videos that have the greatest impact.

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``Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.``

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Nonprofit Youth Programs & Media Services | True Media Foundation

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The True Media Foundation (TMF) mission is to produce media with positive social impact. Focused on global citizenship, we produce media that educates and entertains-commonly referred to as "Edutainment."

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Make a Difference - Inspiration for Kids | Inspire My Kids

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Welcome to the world's largest community of inspiration for kids

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Inspiring kids to end hunger and poverty in their communities, their country, and their world.

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Kids have an amazing ability to affect change in our world. They have the natural intelligence, passion, and drive to see something they don't like and work to change it. They also have the capacity to inspire others through their actions. Here you can read about inspiring kids making a difference in the world. Read about what they are doing and use it to spark a fire to go out into the world yourself and make a difference in the world around you.

We hope that you too will be inspired by what these kids are doing, and that you will want to join them and pursue your own project. Click HERE to find more resources to help you come up with an idea, or you can click the button below to apply for a grant to help fund your project.
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Stories About Kids Making A Difference - Start A Snowball

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Kids have an amazing ability to affect change in our world. They have the natural intelligence, passion, and drive to see something they don't like and work to change it. They also have the capacity to inspire others through their actions. Here you can read about inspiring kids making a difference in the world.

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A 10-year-old singer who serenades the elderly. A 12-year-old triathlete who raises money for cancer research-just your average, run-of-the-mill kids, right? Not exactly, hence why we couldn't help designating the following eight children our 2011 Kids of the Year. (If we had the power, we'd make them goodwill ambassadors to the United Nations, to say the least!) From each of their brilliant minds came ideas that are original, creative, and hard-to-believe-it's-possible-and, to add that extra bit of wow, they make other people's lives better. Get ready to be amazed and inspired!

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A 10-year-old singer who serenades the elderly. A 12-year-old triathlete who raises money for cancer research-just your average, run-of-the-mill kids, right? Not exactly, hence why we couldn't help designating the following eight children our 2011 Kids of the Year. (If we had the power, we'd make them goodwill ambassadors to the United Nations, to say the least!)

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Subscriber Sign In - National Geographic Society

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Ready-to-Go Teaching Kits for Every Text Immerse your students in the most exciting reading experiences. Every Storyworks text is carefully crafted for students' interests and abilities and is packaged with rich multimodal support tools for joyful teaching and learning. Plus!

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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