Math and Social Justice
Lesson Plans
ALLOCATION OF ONTARIO GOVERNMENT SPENDING (GRADE 5)
ANALYZING BOOKS (GRADE 7, 8)
CHAIN GAME, THE (GRADE 6-8)
CHANGING WORLD PERSPECTIVES - WHAT'S UP? SOUTH! (GRADE 7)
Child labour
CONSUMERISM AND GOVERNMENT SPENDING (GRADE 8)
CREATING A SAFE AND INCLUSIVE PLAYGROUND (ANY)
DAILY WATER CONSUMPTION (GRADE 5)
FAIR TRADE (GRADE 8)
FOOD DISTRIBUTION AROUND THE WORLD (GRADE 3)
GLOBAL TRADING SIMULATION (GRADE 5, 6)
GLOBAL VILLAGE AND FOOD EQUITY (GRADE 3)
HEALTHY EATING (GRADE 2-3)
Historical figures (1 minute)
IMPORTANCE OF WATER (GRADE 8)
POVERTY AND MALNUTRITION (GRADE 2)
POVERTY AND RESOURCE CONSUMPTION (GRADE 5)
recycling pictograph (grade 3)
VIOLENCE IN MEDIA (GRADE 3-6)
war in iraq
who's in a family (grade 3)
world population and wealth
WORLD RESOURCES (GRADE 5)
Allocation of Ontario Government Spending (Grade 5)
Math:
Read, represent, compare and order whole numbers, Interpret Patterns, Find patterns.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Budgeting, Government Spending, Social Change.
Lesson Description:
Explain budgeting and compare it to household income and spending. Students will be taught how to record their data and be guided through the creation of a pictogram. Educate students on who they would send their graphs and letters to in their area to prompt change. A follow-up lesson of going through the process of sending these letters is suggested.
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Analyzing Books (Grade 7, 8)
Math:
Equity, Analyzing
Social Justice Issue(s):
Different types of media
Lesson Description:
This lesson is being taught to introduce students to the concept that they can use a social justice lens to evaluate the different types of media that they are exposed to in the classroom.
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Analyzing Books.doc
Analyzing Books - appendix.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan, Appendix
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Math:
Problem Solving, Number Sense and Numeration, Estimation
Geography:
Natural Resources
Social Justice Issue(s):
World Trade, Privalege, GDP, Global Allocation of Resources
Lesson Description:
In groups students will be given different resources (representing the resources of their nation) and given the same task of producing the longest possible paper chain. Throughout the activity students will be updated with the current selling price of newspaper chains and coloured chains. Staplers (expensive technology) will be added to simulate greater access to resources for some countries. After the activity students debrief about world trade, how it felt to have less resources, and the development of new technology.
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6 GM - The Chain Game - All.doc
7 GM - The Chain Game - All.doc
8 GM - The Chain Game - All.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan, Breakdown of each group's materials, Discussion questions
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Math:
Geometry
Language Arts:
Literacy, Communication
Social Justice Issue(s):
Perspective, Oppression, Power (global scale)
Lesson Description:
Students will use geometrical shapes to build continents and answer questions. In the "What's Up? South!" activity, students will view the "regular" world map, flip it upside down, and reflect on the social implications of being "on top."
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7 ML global power - changing world perspectives - All.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan, Worksheet, Photos of Activity
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Math:
Collection and organization of data
Social Justice Issue(s):
Consumerism, injustice
Lesson Description:
Collect and organize discrete or continuous primary and secondary data and display the data in charts, tables and graphs.
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Child Labour.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan
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Math:
Data Management, Collection and Organization of Data, Identify Trends, Read, interpret and draw conclusions from data.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Consumerism, Budgeting, Government Spending.
Lesson Description:
Students will be asked what they would spend their money on if they were given $50, and will then tabulate data on the most popular activities. The students will complete their worksheet as the teacher progresses through the PowerPoint presentation. Students will make inferences based on the US military budget over the past few years and compare this spending to other areas.
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Math:
Geometry (quadrilaterals).
Art:
Produce 2D-3D works to communicate ideas.
Language Arts:
Personal Expression, Literacy.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Child Safety, Bullying.
Lesson Description:
Students are first introduced to the relevant UN declaration on Children's rights: "All children have a right to relax and play, and join in a wide range of activities." They then brainstorm what makes a good playground and use their shapes to create that playground. Students will present their parks and describe what makes them safe.
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Math:
Display primary data, read, interpret, and draw conclusions from data.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Water Consumption, Equity, Poverty, Global Allocation of Resources.
Lesson Description:
Students will use blue blocks and graph paper to show how they think the world's water supply is distributed among 4 different countries. Students will compare their initial thoughts with the actual data. Students will be answer questions on Canada's water consumption compared to other countries. Students will then brainstorm ways we can use less water.
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5 M - Daily Water Consumption - All.doc
Includes: Lesson plan, Water Consumption data, Student worksheet
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Math:
Number Sense, Data management, Probability.
Geography:
Economic Systems.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Fair Trade, Wealth Distribution, Wages Worldwide.
Lesson Description:
Students will record on post it notes the countries where the clothes they are wearing were made and then place these on a map. Students will focus on the location where most of their clothes are made (probably Asia) and brainstorm reasons why this may be the case. Students will then be presented with data on employee wages in each country and explore the term "fair trade". Students will then find ways to represent frequency data and will answer some math questions.
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8 GM - Fair Trade - All.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan, Discussion Questions
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Math:
Data collection, Graphing.
Social Studies:
Compare communities.
Language Arts:
Extend understanding by connecting content to self.
Social Justice Issue(s):
World Hunger, Fairness, Injustice, Power (global scale).
Lesson Description:
Students receive a small introduction to food distribution and the word "distribution". The class is divided into 3 groups/countries (rich, medium and poor). Children will transfer tally chart data to bar graphs and create a pictograph using food to represent food distribution between these 3 groups.
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3 mls - food distribution around the world.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan, Advance Organizer Questions, Student Questions
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Math:
Problem Solving, Number Sense, Data Management.
Geography:
Economic Systems.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Equity, Currency Strength, Wealth Distribution, Privilege
Lesson Description:
Students will participate in "the Global Trading Game". Each group will represent a developed or less developed country. Each country type can produce different types of resources and there may be limits to how much they can make. Countries will have 1 trader who will try to sell their products to other countries and gain money. At the end of the game students sell all their unsold product domestically and convert their income to Canadian dollars to compare earnings. Students will engage in a discussion surrounding inequities in the system and the fairness of resource and wealth distribution.
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5 6 GM - Global Trading Simulation - All.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan, Game Rules, Discussion Topics
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Math:
Data Management, collect and organize data, read, interpret, and draw conclusions from secondary data
Social Justice Issue(s):
Wealth distribution, Equity
Lesson Description:
Students read "If the World Were A Villiage" and generate some ideas around helping those who have less money. Students review the basics of buidling graphs and then design one as a group.
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3 M - Global Village and Food Equity - All.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan for Math and Social Studies
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Health:
Identify healthy eating habits and a balanced diet.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Healthy Eathing, World Hunger.
Lesson Description:
Students will start out being read a book caleld Something Good by Robert Munsch. They are then introduced to Canada's food guide and discuss whether the many foods they saw in the book are healthy or not. Students will then cut out foods from magazines and place them into the four food groups. Students will then create a healthy food in their groups and present to everyone why their made their choice.
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2 3 H - Creating Healthy Meals - Plan.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan
Historical Figures (1 Minute)
Math:
Comparison, equity, organization.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Exploration, peace, war, history, media.
Lesson Description:
An exercise to generate a list of historical figures. Once lists are completed, various data is established, discussed and compared.
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Historical figures in 1 minute.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan
Math:
Solve multistep problems, communicate with area, volume, capacity.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Water Consumption, Water Logging, Gloabl Infrastructure.
Lesson Description:
Students are introduced to clean water facts, and asked to imagine what it would be like without pumped, piped, or treated water. Students then learn about the conversion of volume and capacity. Next students have to estimate their personal water needs in litres per day. Students then gain some experience walking with water jugs to simulate the difficulty of walking 6Km for clean water.
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8 m - the importance of water.doc
Includes: Clean water facts, Lesson Plan, Teachers' reflection on lesson success
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Math:
Number sense and numeration,
Health:
Identify a balanced diet.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Poverty, Malnutrition.
Lesson Description:
Students are put into groups of about 3 and given money to buy food with. Each family is given a different amount of money (which they didn't know at first). Each group plans which foods they want to but and goto the pretend store to make their purchases. Students explain how it felt to have less money, the difficulty of obtaining healthy food, and brainstorm ideas to help those who have less money.
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2 HM - Poverty and Malnutrition - All.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan
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Math:
Data Management, collect and organize data, read, interpret, and draw conclusions from secondary data.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Poverty, Sustainable Resources.
Lesson Description:
Students will be introduced to some math facts and photos about poverty and consumption. In groups students will then graph the consumption of different resources (Oil, water, paper, and electricity). Students then share their findings for their resource with the rest of the class. Students will summarize their findings and emotions surrounding the consumption in different countries and brainstorm some ways to reduce their consumption of these resources.
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5 M - Poverty and Resource Consumption - All.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan, Consumption Data, Marking rubric for graphing, Follow up Lesson Plan, Marking Rubric for Home Sustainability Rubric, Teachers' Reflections on the lesson
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Recycling Pictograph (Grade 3)
Math:
Data Management, collect and organize data, read, interpret, and draw conclusions from primary data.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Recycling, Sustainable Resources.
Lesson Description:
Students address recycling. They will collect data by conducting a simple survey about themselves and their environment; organize categorical or discrete primary data and display the data in charts.
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Recycling pictograph.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan,
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Math:
Collect Data using a survey, draw conclusions from data.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Violence in Media
Lesson Description:
Students survey themselves on how many hours of T.V, movies, and games they watch or play over the course of a week. Students then reflect on their findings and visually represent their tallied data.
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3 5 6 M - Violence in Media - All.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan
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War in Iraq
Math:
Data collection and management,statistics, finance/money.
Social Justice Issue(s):
War, equity.
Lesson Description:
Students are provided with statistics and figures regarding to the cost of war in Iraq.
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War in Iraq.doc
Includes: Lesson numbers.
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Who's in a family (Grade 3)
Math:
Equity, graphing, charts and tables.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Types of families, backgrounds
Lesson Description:
This lesson will serve as a review for the grade 3 Data Management unit on graphing, as well as an introduction to different types of families. It will encourage students to brainstorm what a 'family' means, and think about the many different types of families.
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Who's in a family.doc
Includes: Lesson plan.
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World Population and Wealth
Math:
Population, wealth
Social Justice Issue(s):
Resources. living quality.
Lesson Description:
Students answer questions to define levels of wealth among countries. Wealth levels are measured by comparing factors collected during class discussion.
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World population and wealth.doc
Includes: Lesson plan.
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Math:
Data Management, collect and organize data, read, interpret, and draw conclusions from secondary data.
Social Justice Issue(s):
Wealth distribution, Equity, Fairness, World Aid.
Lesson Description:
Read pages 16-22 of "If the world were a Village" with students. The class will represent the number of people in the entire world and the teacher will distribute the world's wealth between the students. This distribution of wealth by country will first be done by students estimates, and later candies will be handed out to represent the actual distribution of wealth. Students will attempt to negotiate with other countries to donate their wealth/candies. At the end students will debrief their feelings and emotions of fairness with the data from the wealth chart.
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5 M - World Resources - All.doc
Includes: Lesson Plan, Accommodations, World Population wealth table and graph, marking rubrics.
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