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Video Summary: How do you teach students to become effective citizens? How can young children make positive contributions to their community? Darlene Jones-Inge challenges her fourth- and fifth-grade students to think of realistic solutions to some of the problems facing their school, community, country, and the world.
Ms. Jones-Inge begins with a class discussion about issues students have been following in the news. The class focuses on the health risks caused by a hole in the ozone layer above a city in southern Chile. Students brainstorm ways to help the people who live in that city — from the relatively straightforward (sending sunblock to Chile) to the more complex (asking the Chilean government to provide free healthcare to its citizens). Students then choose five ideas from the list, come up with ways to implement them, and make posters to present to the class. From this exercise, students learn to distinguish between realistic and unrealistic goals, recognize the importance of reaching a consensus, and most of all, identify their role as global citizens.
Content Standards:
“Social studies encompasses so many parts of our school’s curriculum, such as math, science, and literature. It allows students to explore aspects of both academic and human life, and it develops great humanitarians.”
— Darlene Jones-Inge
Darlene Jones-Inge teaches fourth-grade social studies at the Patrick O’Hearn Elementary School in Dorchester, Massachusetts. A close-knit community bordering downtown Boston, Dorchester is home to a diverse ethnic and socioeconomic population. The school population reflects the community: 50 percent is African American; 20 percent is Caucasian; and 20 percent are recent immigrants from Ireland, Africa, Cape Verde, Haiti, and Vietnam. O’Hearn Elementary is also a full-inclusive school. Students with physical and cognitive disabilities participate in regular classes, and the school’s parent outreach program offers child-care during parent-teacher meetings. Parent involvement and student retention are both high.
Throughout the year, Ms. Jones-Inge’s students studied the culture and history of different world regions, including China, Africa, Egypt, Greece, and the United States; and focused on the connections, similarities, and differences among cultures. Ms. Jones-Inge also emphasized applying social studies themes and ideas to the real world. Through field trips, students interacted with contemporary cultures whose origins connect back to regions the students studied. In each unit, students learned related vocabulary words, examined relevant current event articles, and studied geographical features of the area.
Units in Darlene Jones-Inge’s Social Studies Year
Part of the United States unit, the “Making a Difference Through Giving” lesson focused on students’ roles as global citizens. This lesson built on students’ earlier study of other cultures and incorporated the yearlong theme of community service. Other community service activities throughout the year included planting trees in the schoolyard and visiting local nursing homes.
By this time in the year, Ms. Jones-Inge expected students to be able to work in groups, brainstorm for creative solutions, and think about what it means to be a global citizen. By designing achievable community service projects, Ms. Inge-Jones also wanted students to realize the satisfaction of completing realistic, long-term goals.
Following the video lesson, the students explored connections between themselves and other aspects of American history. For example, while studying women’s history, they researched women who made a difference in their own lives and in world history. The year ended with a comprehensive unit on the five themes of geography.
Read this information to better understand the lesson shown in the video.
Content: The Ozone Layer
Ozone (O3) is form of oxygen made up of three atoms instead of two. About 90 percent of the ozone in Earth’s atmosphere is located in a layer about 10 miles above Earth’s surface, in the upper stratosphere. This layer is called the ozone layer. The ozone layer absorbs most of the ultraviolet radiation (UV rays) emitted by the sun, preventing dangerous amounts from reaching Earth.
In the mid-1970s, scientists determined that human activity, especially ultra-fast air travel and the use of aerosol spray cans, refrigerants, pesticides, and firefighting halogens, was beginning to affect the ozone layer. In 1982, scientists concluded that the ozone layer was getting thinner with each passing year. In 1995, a hole 4 million square miles in size was discovered in the ozone layer above Antarctica. By the year 2000, the hole had grown to 11.4 million square miles, an area more than three times the size of the United States.
The depletion of the ozone layer causes more radiation to reach the Earth, and extended exposure to UV rays has been linked with, among other problems, skin cancer, cataracts, and a weakened immune system.
NASA’s research confirms that the hole in the ozone layer, which used to cover just the area over Antarctica, has recently expanded to include the populated regions at the southern tip of Chile. In the city of Punta Arenas, for example, daytime ultraviolet radiation levels are calculated to be 40 percent higher than normal. Most adults wear sunglasses and sunblock, while children and those of pale complexion are advised not to stay in the sun for longer than seven minutes at a time.
In 1987, more than 160 nations signed the Montreal Protocol, an agreement to phase out the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances in order to protect the ozone layer. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, if the Montreal Protocol is followed, the ozone layer will return to normal by 2050.
Teaching Strategy: Exploring Current Issues
Students often become aware of current issues through the media, but their exposure generally is at a superficial level. There are several strategies you can use to engage young children in current events locally and globally. First, have students connect what they pick up in the news to their own lives as an effective strategy for engaging young children in current events locally and globally. Second, have students explore the effects of an event or issue on other people’s lives. Or third, present the issue as a problem for students to solve, as Ms. Jones-Inge has done. By expanding on the information they receive from the news, students develop their research skills. By working in groups to plan for realistic and useful courses of action, students learn and practice civil discussion, explore democratic principles such as individual rights, human dignity, and fairness, and demonstrate their ability to make a difference.
Before You Watch
Respond to the following questions:
Watch the Video
As you watch “Making a Difference Through Giving,” take notes on Ms. Jones-Inge’s instructional strategies, particularly how she urges children to make a realistic contribution to the world. Write down what you find interesting, surprising, or especially important about the teaching and learning in this lesson.
Reflecting on the Video
Review your notes, then respond to the following questions:
Looking Closer
Let’s take a second look at Ms. Jones-Inge’s class to focus on specific teaching strategies. Use the video images below to locate where to begin viewing.
Identifying Issues: Video Segment
Go to this segment in the video by matching the image (to the left) on your video screen. You’ll find this segment approximately 3 minutes into the video. Watch for about 6 minutes.
Ms. Jones-Inge’s students have been discussing issues they read about in newspapers. As the lesson begins, they describe the problems people in Punta Arenas, Chile, have with overexposure to the sun. Then students discuss local, national, and global problems that they can help solve.
Choosing Realistic Goals for Action: Video Segment
Go to this segment in the video by matching the image (to the left) on your video screen. You’ll find this segment approximately 16 minutes into the video. Watch for about 5 minutes.
The students have voted to determine the groups that will be formed. They are working together to identify some realistic “gifts” they can offer to their community, nation, and world.
Reflecting on Your Practice
Taking It Back to Your Classroom
For related print materials and Web sites, see Resources.
NCSS Standards
Expectations of Excellence: Curriculum Standards for Social Studies defines what students should know and be able to do in social studies at each educational level. This lesson correlates to the following standards for elementary school students:
IX. Global Connections
Explore causes, consequences, and possible solutions to persistent, contemporary, and emerging global issues, such as pollution and endangered species.
X. Civic Ideals and Practices
Identify key ideals of the United States’ democratic republican form of government, such as individual human dignity, liberty, justice, equality, and the rule of law, and discuss their application in specific situations; identify examples of rights and responsibilities of citizens; locate, access, organize, and apply information about an issue of public concern from multiple points of view; identify and practice selected forms of civic discussion and participation consistent with the ideals of citizens in a democratic republic; explain actions citizens can take to influence public policy decisions; recognize that a variety of formal and informal actions influence and shape public policy; recognize and interpret how the “common good” can be strengthened through various forms of citizen action.
Content Standards:
Civics
Print Resources
For Students
Bronson, Marsha, and Joseph G. Oberle. Amnesty International. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Silver Burdett Press, 1994.
Donald, Rhonda Lucas. The Ozone Layer. True Books: Environment. Chicago, Ill.: Children’s Press, 2002.
Milord, Susan. Hands Around the World: 365 Creative Ways To Build Cultural Awareness and Global Respect. Kids Can. Milwaukee, Wis.: Gareth Stevens, 1999.
For Teachers
Amnesty International. Our World, Our Rights: Teaching About Rights and Responsibilities in the Elementary School. New York: Amnesty International, 2001.
Beal, Candy, and Peter H. Martorella. Social Studies for Elementary School Classrooms: Preparing Children To Be Global Citizens. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2001.
Evans, Ronald W., and David Warren Saxe, eds. Handbook on Teaching Social Issues. National Council for the Social Studies Bulletin 93. Washington, D.C., 1996.
McBee, Robin Haskell. “Can Controversial Topics Be Taught in the Early Grades? The Answer Is Yes!” Social Education 60, no.1 (1995).
Web Sites
For Students
CitizenLink
Through this site students can explore the meaning of global citizenship through games, articles, and lesson plans.
Scholastic Online
This extension of the Scholastic children’s book publishing company offers activities, news, and kid-friendly articles about current issues around the world.
TIME for Kids
TIME for Kids is an interactive site dedicated to making current events fun and accessible to kids.
Weekly Reader Galaxy
Written for kids K-12, this companion Web site to the popular elementary school magazine Weekly Reader features news, books, and games.
For Teachers
Cool Planet for Teachers
Oxfam’s Cool Planet site offers curriculum guides, articles, and teaching resources on global citizenship and education.
The Ozone Hole Tour
The University of Cambridge presents an extensive look into the history of the ozone, in the form of a step-by-step “tour” that teachers can take with their students.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The Ozone Depletion section at the EPA Web site includes articles, glossaries, and a resource center devoted to the subject of the ozone layer.