Every day, we make choices about what to eat based on our health and what we like and can afford. As global citizens who care about the good of all, we can also be aware of making food choices based on our impact on an interconnected system.
Young people discuss and debate the issues related to ethical consumerism and the common good, and consider how their spending habits reflect their values.
Students explore the legacy of George H. W. Bush and how he has contributed to the common good as part of his lifelong commitment to service and through his Points of Light initiative. The students work in small groups to answer questions and present to the class for discussion. Each student...
Our lives are the results of billions of decisions. Not only the big decisions – law school or skydiving classes, but the small decisions as well – do you greet someone or pass by? Do you extend a helping hand or the back of it? What we decide determines the course of lives, the content of our...
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...
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.
This lesson will familiarize learners with a story of Creation from the Jewish mystical tradition. The story, based upon the Sefer Yetzirah, provides the foundation for the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, repair of the world. Learners will begin to formulate a personal concept...
Students examine the intent and reality of the orphan train and discuss whether it was an effective solution to child homelessness. They write and speak about the traits of someone who takes action for others and civil society.
These activities help youth see the web of communities to which they belong and define what it means to be a member of a community.
Author: Urban EdVenture Faculty at Westminster
Learners use economic thinking to determine how to allocate their scarce resources for community service.