(for grades 7-12)
- Have students work with a local or international NGO to study cases of international incidents and the global response. What were the challenges? What were the successes? Who are the stakeholders, how are decisions made, and what were the short term and long term results of international interventions?
- Simulate an international event like a conflict over land or resources or a natural incident like an earthquake. Role play the stakeholders creating an action plan or have students design the stages of responding to the event with a model. Bring in experts from the community to answer student questions or raise further questions for students to think about. Bring in a field expert who could relay their own experience. Look for blogs or journals online that give first-hand accounts of the dynamics of dealing with a global issue.
- Take a tradition from the school like collecting jackets in the winter for those in need or collecting food for the food bank during the holidays, and redesign it for greater impact and understanding. Look at the statistics in your city for homelessness or usage of the food bank. Call the local groups in charge and ask questions, or have them come in and give a presentation. Students will generate questions of their own, like: “Why do people need food banks? What happens when people visit the food bank? Who works at the food bank and who uses the food bank? How many kids use the food bank? Expand the questions to be more national and then international. Let the students become experts on their city and the food that comes into the city. Let them start to ask questions about food security in their country and then in the world. Allow the tradition of collecting food during the holidays to become a school-wide search for understanding about food security. Break down stereotypes that surround hunger in countries that experience issues around food security. Have the students call international agencies that deal with food security or experts from the local colleges or universities for further answers to questions.
- Take students on field trips to various parts of the city or rural areas outside the city to experience different cultures and subcultures.
- Pretend to shut the water off in the school for 15 or 30 minutes. Ask the students how life would change if the water disappeared? Ask them to design a plan of what we would do to go about accessing water if our city’s water source was not available? What would cause the water to not be available? What questions would they be asking? Who could help? How would we reach out for help? Ask how we are helping people to access clean water around the world? Contact an NGO or international organization to help create a school-wide or class project to help others access clean water.
