Global Issues Teaching Units 

This page features examples of how teachers have integrated Facing the Future curriculum and service learning action projects in specific subject areas and grade levels.

If you have a unit plan you'd like to share with other educators, please give us a description using our online form. 

Social Studies Immigration Unit

CLASS: World Cultures
GRADE: 6
TIME REQUIRED: 3-4 class periods
GOAL: Students will understand the relationship between unequal distribution of resources and its impacts, such as migration and conflict, and take action to address these issues.

Curriculum and Activities

• Watch the movie “Sweet 16” (about immigration) 
• Read Chapter 5, “Global Trends: Food, Water, and Income,” in Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions (Facing the Future student textbook)
• Do the Facing the Future activity “Let Them Eat Cake”
• Give students a worksheet with reflection questions

Action Projects

Work with a local food bank
Heifer International - Raise money to buy farm animals for poor families
Oxfam Hunger Banquet - Build awareness about global hunger and inequality

Social Studies Energy Unit

SUBJECT: Social Studies
CLASS: Contemporary World Problems/Global Studies
GRADE: 12
TIME REQUIRED: 3-4 class periods
GOAL: Students will understand the predominant sources of energy in the United States, the impacts of energy production and consumption on individuals and the environment, and their personal energy consumption. 

Curriculum and Activities 

• Read Unit 3, “Meeting Essential Human Needs: Food, Water, and Energy,” in It's All Connected (Facing the Future student textbook)
• Do the Facing the Future activity “Watch Where You Step!”
• Conduct an Ecological Footprint Awareness Campaign in which students post their footprint diagrams around the school
• Students develop strategies to reduce their energy consumption and record their success

Action Projects

School energy audit
Bike-to-school day
Greenstar - Conduct market research for communities in developing countries that are using solar technology to produce crafts

Social Studies Poverty Unit

CLASS: World Geography Class
GRADE: 9
TIME REQUIRED: 3-4 class periods
GOALS: Study and compare the economic and social issues of an industrialized and developing country. See the connections between access to wealth and opportunities for self-sufficiency. 

Curriculum and Activities

• Read Unit 5, “Quality of Life: Culture, Health, Education, and Human Rights,” in It's All Connected (Facing the Future student textbook)
• Do the Facing the Future activity “Shop Till You Drop?”
• Collect and present data and information on two countries
• Develop and analyze a business plan application for a micro-grant
• Produce an outline for a class fundraising strategy and raise money for Trickle Up microgranting project

Action Project

Trickle Up - Raise money to provide small business grants to poor people in developing countries

Science Energy Unit

CLASS: Conceptual Physics
GRADE: 9
TIME REQUIRED: 3-4 class periods
GOALS: Understand how electricity works, the sources and costs of energy, impacts on the environment, and how energy affects the individual and society. Explore energy consumption and understand that each person has a global impact, depending on his/her consumption. 

Curriculum and Activities

• Read Unit 3, “Meeting Essential Human Needs: Food, Water, and Energy,” in It's All Connected (Facing the Future student textbook)
• Do the Facing the Future activity “Watch Where You Step!” to diagram an ecological footprint
• Conduct a school energy audit
• Complete a personal energy reduction pledge form

Action Project 

School energy audit

World Language Quality of Life Unit

CLASS: Spanish
GRADE: 9-12
TIME REQUIRED: 2-3 weeks
LENGTH: 4 Week Unit
GOALS: Understand how the United States impacts the quality of life in Latin America and Spain and vice versa.
Understand that what happens in Latin America and in Spain is interconnected.

Curriculum and Activities

• Students fill out and color maps of Latin America and Spain, labeling them with capitals, mountains and major rivers.
• Students research population and consumption data for one of the Latin American countries or for Spain or the United States. Students present their research to the class using pie charts that depict percentages, such as population density in urban, rural and suburban areas, or consumption rates for different occupations and income levels.
• Students present a map of their country, color-coding areas of population growth rates, to show geographic variations.
• Do the Facing the Future activity “Let Them Eat Cake” using modified population statistics from the United States, Latin America, and Spain
• Do the Facing the Future activity “Watch Where You Step!”
• Research their chosen country’s ecological footprint and create an artistic display.
• Do the Facing the Future activity “When the Chips Are Down” focusing on the United States as the industrial nation; Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Spain and Argentina as developing world countries; and the rest as under-developed countries.
• Students create charts of the population and consumption indicators, to show the distinctions between the nations studied. They then write a paragraph in Spanish explaining their findings.

Assessment

In groups of four, students develop a true/false quiz covering all countries studied in this unit. Each group takes two quizzes authored by two different groups. The teacher reviews quizzes prior to administering them.

Action Projects

• Join the Amnesty International Club, writing letters for the release of prisoners in Latin America
• Heifer International (sponsored by the Spanish Club) - providing farm animals specifically for poor people in Latin America
• Work with the Spanish Club to raise money (selling Nicaraguan hammocks as well as concessions at basketball games) for a college scholarship for one economically disadvantaged student from Nicaragua