An Idea for a colaboration project on World Hunger
Looking for interested teachers???
Last year at Glen Dhu the “World Vision Club” organized our first annual “Skip A Snack Day”. The purpose of this particular project was to develop community awareness re. world hunger, and also to raise funds to support this cause. We engaged in a number of educational activities with the students which then culminated in a day in which the students gave up their snack for the morning recess period. The idea of skipping the snack was naturally to add to the empathy component of hunger.
The event date was set to coincide with the 30 Hour Famine date in April. This was a fairly successful program with a high participation rate, especially in the primary and junior divisions. I also had several students that insisted on participating to some degree in the actual 30 hour famine (about 5 students did all or part of the 30 hours).
It was my hope to try and expand this program into other schools this year. With the initiation of “World Class” I thought this would be a good forum in which to invite other schools to participate, and thus try and broaden this into more of a national activity. I am interested to hear from other teachers with regards to different approaches or ideas that could be utilized (i.e. for education, awareness, fundraising, etc.)
I also believe that this project fits well into the “Think / Act / Change” model of World Class.
* The idea is for the students to work on the awareness /research / promotional activities from approximately January to April at which time the event will be held.
]1)]Think
[/b]
•Educational Activities
•* A file called “Hungry for Change” containing resources to support this project will be added to the World Class Staff Room. Please feel free to add your own lesson ideas and resources to that file. Additional resources can be found on the World Vision Canada site (www.worldvision.ca) under Education and Justice: Educational Resources.
-Education/awareness could focus on areas such as:
- Statistics
- What can we do to help solve the problem? (short and long-term solutions)
- What is life like for children who go hungry every day?
- What is our government currently doing?
- Discuss local hunger/poverty issues (e.g. food banks, soup kitchens)
- Examine specific countries/communities
- What unique ideas our currently being tried to assist those who live in extreme poverty
- What parts of the world have been hardest hit with food shortages
- What are some of the causes of food shortages in different countries (e.g. climate change, land usage, government corruption…)
- Writing individual stories of children who are experiencing hunger
- Research common diseases that are a result of malnutrition
- Compare the health consequences of our over-eating (in Canada) with that of malnutrition in other countries
2) Act
A) Projects
Possible ideas
1)Student research specific issues
2)Students do promo events to get other schools to participate
3)Create information booths to be set up in the school gym or possibly in a local mall / community centre (simulation activities, poster displays, guest speakers etc.)
4)Organize an ambassador team to promote the activity in other schools
5)Partner with community agencies
6)Connect with local media
8)Create a WC blog that would be posted to the school windows of all participating classes...if all the classes belong to the collaboration space, we can select to post the blog to all the school windows.
Hoa also came up with the suggestion that I could could create a Skip-a-Snack Day class in my school and invite participants to join; once you belong to that class, the blog can be posted to your school windows too.
•I invite your input on these options
9)Students write blogs and post pictures to document their progress
B) Fundraising Options
- replace a snack with a loonie donation pledge forms for skip a snack day
12 hour famine for intermediates
- Have students do a skip event during the recess famine (skip rope)
- Other???
3 Change
•Reflection Activities
-Student blogs
-Video of their event which could include testimonies, interviews, etc.
-Reflection cards (photo of students with written reflection included - they could be put up on walls of the school or classroom
-Students make up a booklet with testimonies/thoughts included.
-Other??
I am really looking for input from teachers out there. The method of doing this type of thing is by no means carved in stone. I’m sure that there are many of you out there which have better ideas than I have and the more we share with each other the more effective each of us will be in creating a positive change in the world. I would love to hear from you.
Garry Howe
Glen Dhu P.S., Ontario