Inspired by a children’s story about a neighborhood working together to improve the appearance of a vacant lot, young people decide how they will participate in a community project to beautify their community and becoming stewards of the earth.
In this lesson, young people create story scripts from the research and facts collected in Lesson One: Digging Up the Facts. The scripts include setting, one character per child, problem, solution, and a beginning, middle and end. Young people edit and...
Young people make puppets out of recycled materials. They use their creativity to come up with a movable puppet that represents a character in their puppet play.
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?
Young people gain understanding of philanthropists and environmentalists through literature and research. They choose one environmental issue to research and think about its link to philanthropy, the environment, and active citizenship.
Through a fable, learners discuss how generosity improves the quality of life in their communities.
Learners use economic thinking to determine how to allocate their scarce resources for community service.
Learners gain awareness that their active participation in community life (volunteering, elections, advocacy) makes their community and government stronger. They analyze scarcity of resources, cost and benefits, and economic thinking of community engagement.
Learners explore the contributions and recommendations of Benjamin Franklin as a person who engaged in active citizenship.
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.