TeachUNICEF+about+Poverty

Indira Kumar

Sustainability Education

Curriculum Review #3

February 26, 2013

Himal’s Story: How Poverty Affects Children
 * TeachUNICEF **

TeachUNICEF is a portfolio of free global education resources. Resources cover grades PK-12, are interdisciplinary and align with National Content Standards. The lesson plans, stories and multimedia cover topics ranging from the Millennium Development Gorals to Water and Sanitation.
 * Organization **

The United Nations Children’s Fund works in more than 190 countries and territories to save and improve children’s lives, providing health care and immunizations, clean water and sanitation, nutrition, education, emergency relief and more. The US Fund for UNICEF supports UNICEF’s work through fundraising, advocacy, and education in the United States. Together, we are working toward the day when zero children die from preventable causes and every child has a safe and healthy childhood.

TeachUNICEF’s mission is to support and create well-informed global citizens who understand interconnectedness, respect and value diversity, have the ability to challenge injustice and inequalities and take action in personally meaningful ways. They hope that in providing engaging and academically rich materials that offer multiple voices, TeachUNICEF can encourage the exploration of critical global issues while presenting opportunities to take action
 * Mission **

TeachUNICEF has multiple topics to explore, each covering a range of grades. This collection of teaches resources addresses poverty to students in grade 6-8. The units highlight the story of a teenage named Himal from Nepal who shares his story of working to overcome challenging circumstances. The lesson is prompted by a video of Himal and contains additional lesion plans, multimedia and stories to illustrate the issues and challenges of addressing poverty.
 * Educational Philosophy **

The middle school version of //Himal’s Story// is a unit of three lessons. The lessons are designed to (1) raise awareness of the multiple causes of poverty, (2) increase students’ understanding of how poverty affects children’s lives and (3) explore solutions and programs that can help break the cycle of poverty. In Lesson 1, students explore the life of Himal, a working teen living in poverty in Nepal, by viewing a short video and answering a short interview guide. Lesson 2 uses statistics to examine the impact of poverty on the lives of children in developing countries. In Lesson 3, they will read about the UN’s Millennium Development Goals and how attempts are being made to address poverty and its potential impact. With these lessons, students consider the impact of poverty on various aspects of children’s lives, look at different aspects of deprivation and consider the long-term effect of each, and examine statistics and calculate the extent to which progress is being made in addressing poverty in Nepal.
 * Learning Outcomes **

This curriculum module promotes critical thinking, media analysis and compassionate understanding which are all important skills to develop in young students. Educating students about something that does not affect their personal life, such as poverty in developing countries, can be a challenging task. The media that is provided allows for a real-world, empathic understanding of a topic that is so distant to privileged US students. The activities utilize skills taught in other subjects (math, science, social studies and geography) to lean about lifestyles and conditions at a global level. This had a great conclusion that focused on the opportunities Himal will have once obtaining an education.
 * Does this curriculum teach the kind of literacies the EcoEd Research Group advocates? **

All the activities, homework assignments and videos kept a light tone that would not scare children of this age. I think some of the lessons could be supplemented with more lasting impressions of the students. Learning by instruction can only go so far, and active learning by doing can really get students to think of the long term affects to challenge poverty. It’s difficult to define the face of poverty, but students can grasp how poverty can be challenged.
 * What could be layered into this curriculum so that it address more of the learning outcomes that the EcoEd Group advocates? **

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 * Sources **

// Opening Prompt: “1 in 5 people in the world live on less than $1 per day.” //