Learners explore that government and non-profit organizations together help bring about breakthroughs in modern science and medicine. These contributions to the common good require the support of philanthropists, large and small.
Young people explore what it means to be an environmentalist. They work in small groups to research the facts and possible solultions related to an environmental issue. The ultimate goal of the unit is to empower young people to share their knowledge (talent) and make others aware of environmental issues for the common good.
Young people perform their puppet plays in order to teach others about environmental issues. They reflect on this project by writing an answer to some essential questions of the unit: What does it mean to be a philanthropist? What does it mean to be an environmentalist?
Learners describe good nutritional practices and make a plan to eat healthy.
The classroom is matched up with another classroom (or any group of people) in the country or the world. The students communicate by letter or e-mail and compare characteristics of place such as methods of transportation, weather, resources, and culture. Students will eventually work with their pen pal classroom to design and implement a service project.
Students write to pen pals in a different community and discuss ideas related to a service project. For example, the pen pals may plan and monitor a canned-good donation project.
By reading about her life and her work, students will understand how Mary Eliza Church Terrell’s writing and activism brought about change for African Americans and women.
Students identify causes they care about and related nonprofits or community resources. They use writing as a tool to make a difference, using persuasive writing techniques.
Students will summarize the words of Rachel Carson and describe the impact one woman writer had on the world and our environment by reading Part I of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Al Gore's 1994 introduction to the latest printing of the book.
Students will recognize the linguistic strategies that Alice Walker uses in her introduction to Anything You Love Can Be Saved that persuade readers to believe in her causes, and thus begin to think about techniques that they can use in their own activist writing, which they will do in the final lesson of the unit.