Current Issues
Classroom activities to engage students in learning about and discussing issues in the news
Students work together to understand the significance of the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide and consider different methods for stopping it. This lesson can be adapted for science, writing, or social studies classes.
In this lesson, students step back from the debate over a "border wall," and consider the moral arguments for and against “no borders."
Students explore the controversy over the Trump administration's proposal to add a question about citizenship to the census — and learn about the history and purpose of the U.S. census.
Students view and discuss the viral video of two black men being handcuffed and walked out of a Philadelphia Starbucks by six police officers in April 2018. Students consider the accounts of eyewitnesses, as well as an account by the two men who were arrested, and discuss what "racial profiling"...
Students learn about and discuss strikes by teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Kentucky, and consider how they are connected to student-led protests over gun violence.
Edna Chavez, a 17-year-old senior from South Los Angeles, made an impassioned speech about gun violence at the student led March for Our Lives in March 2018. In this lesson, students learn some background about South L.A. and consider Chavez's speech, which puts gun violence in a larger societal...
In the wake of the Parkland school shooting, many have called for increased "school security" measures. In this lesson, students consider whether such measures make schools safer and discuss their impact on young people and the school climate.
In small and large groups, students read media quotes and reflect on some of the successes that young people have booked in building a movement to end gun violence.
In this activity, structured as a circle, students reflect on memories, quotes, and photos from the massive student-led March for Our Lives on Saturday, March 24, 2018.
Students learn what gerrymandering is and why it poses a problem for U.S. democracy, and consider recent attempts to combat the practice.