In a world more interconnected than any period of time in the past, we face new problems that require our immediate global attention. The first unit, Struggles for Justice, helps students learn how current struggles are connected to past issues. The global social justice issues in this section are climate change and globalization. Certain groups of people, particularly people of color in developing nations, face the negative impacts of these global social justice issues more than others. These lessons were promoted to promote and foster awareness and action in our students.
Essential Question: How are the struggles for justice today similar to or different than struggles for justice from the past? Why do we do history?
Lesson Plan 1 - The Long Memory Part I
The purpose of the lesson is to explore the ways that current events exist in the context of the long struggles that came before them, and to ask students to explore and elaborate on the ways that struggles for justice are connected.
Lesson Plan 2 - The Long Memory Part II
Students research modern social movements as a group, and show a basic understanding of who is involved, what they are doing, why it matters and interpret images through writing.
Essential Question: What responsibilities does the government have to ensure the planet is livable for future generations?
Climate Lesson Plan 1 - Introduction to Climate Debt
Students decide if they think the government is responsible for protecting people from human-caused environmental dangers.
Climate Lesson Plan 2 - What are some responsibilities of the world’s developed countries relating to their role in creating climate change?
The purpose of this lesson is is to take the students’ and US government’s positions about climate change in lesson 1 and widen them to include the whole world.
Essential Question: - Is globalization a positive force in the world? For whom?
Lesson 1- What is Globalization?
The basic framework of discovering and identifying globalization is laid out in this lesson plan.
Lesson 2- The Roots of Globalization - Colonialism
The students will examine European colonialism by reading sections of "Burning Books and Destroying People" in a group and then presenting their section to the class. The students will be able to explain colonialism and how it has impacts on today.
Lesson 3- Globalization as a negative force in the world
The class will learn about how globalization is a new form of colonialism by analyzing dependency theory, multinational corporations, Cold War, and international lending.
Lesson 4- Globalization in review - the positives and negatives.
The class will read sources detailing the negatives and positives of globalization. The class will fill out the positive and negative note sheet and then begin working in class on their Globalization essay.