Strange Maps is a great blog that features, well, strange maps. The pictures are really interesting, and the accompanying text is usually informative. A Road Map to Success and Bridge to Nowhere: a Map of Golden Gate Jumpers are examples of maps that I think could be good class prompts. (Thanks Anne)

This infographic from the New York Times shows how different groups of American’s spend every minute of their day. It can be broken down by race, age and gender.

Here is a list of the 15 best websites to get free documentaries. (Thanks Nik)

I found this series of activities on bartering, money and community currency when I was writing about a guy that has been living without money.

(Thanks Larry!)

(Thanks Larry!)

ACT Responsible is a Swiss non-profit that attempts to use the talents of advertisers to address environmental sustainability and social responsibility. Their gallery is full of images and short videos that could be great visual prompts for activities on a wide variety of issues. For starters, check out highlights in The Best Adverts to Save the Planet, a slideshow available from the Guardian.

Dia is extremely intuitive to use, and a great way to make flowcharts, organizational charts, and other diagrams. It could certainly be useful in creating class materials and visual prompts, in addition to doing administrative work. I’m always on the lookout for useful open source software and Dia is a great addition to my list.

Other resources that could be used in activities looking at alternatives economies are Freecycle and freeconomy.

The show itself covers the original lesson, and also has several of the students rewatch it as adults. In my class today, I used only the original lesson, which goes for about 13 minutes starting 4 or so minutes in. The whole video is available on the Frontline website. I also used some of the discussion ideas from this site which has information on Jane Elliot’s continuing development of discrimination education ideas.

This was a perfect video for my current students, who are teachers in the midst of creating lesson plans dealing with democracy and diversity. In addition to being an engaging way to bring up issues of race, it is also a great example of an extremely creative lesson plan.

As a follow-up, I had students discuss the following questions in groups:

1. What do you think of the activity done in this video? What do you like / dislike about it?
2. What are some of the divides in your country / classroom? What are the different rules (written or unwritten) for people on each side of the divide?
3. How would you describe students who are “going to succeed” compared to those who are “stuck in place”?
4. How are teachers treated differently in your organization? (gender / sexual orientation / race / religion / other)
5. What are some activities you have done / could do with students to help them learn about discrimination?

Thanks Jane!

Facing the Future has a collection of activity-based, global issues lesson plans for students of all ages. In addition to the great stuff they offer for sale, they have a ton of materials available as free downloads. I especially like the lesson plans from Engaging Students Through Global Issues, and the Climate Change curricula. Finally, don’t miss their collection of graphs and other graphics. They cover a range of issues and could readily be used for discussion activities.

The International School Studies Association at the University of Denver has a large collection of links to lesson plans that deal with global issues. They break them down thematically (Cultural Studies, Environmental Studies, Economics, etc.) and by grade level.

My collection of links to global issues-themed video games might also work well with K-12 students.

Larry Ferlazzo’s blog has a ton of K-12 materials, and his “Best of” series includes ideas for teaching about social justice issues, environmental issues, Darfur, the recession, and many other issues.

For America-centric lesson plans, the Library of Congress and National Archives both have collections of lesson plans on race, war, gender and other topics. One great thing about these sites is the inclusion of primary sources — documents and images from history that can convey these issues more powerfully to students. The National Archives site also has a series of worksheets to use for analyzing documents, pictures, maps and so on.

Finally, I invite you to look at lesson plans from the Patel Center’s Global Schools Project. These lessons are not made specifically for ESL students, but they could certainly be adapted for them. I am currently working on a Patel Center program for teachers from Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and my students will be adding their lesson plans to this resource.

Please feel free to share other good K-12 resources in the comments!