We will be studying several countries in Asia this school year. Before we begin our study in Asia we are looking into the plight of children around the world covering topics like poverty, lack of education, hunger, war, and the contrast between our world and their world. I have included several YouTube videos and many of them have dramatic pictures of life in poverty. Because of the age of my boys I have avoided the topic of the sex trade and graphic portrayals of violence.
I split the topic into days that should take 30-60 minutes to complete. I gathered the statistics from several different places. While I do believe they are accurate, I may have some figures wrong. Some activity ideas were taken from Connect the Thoughts: Global Poverty and Hunger.
World Map – color 25% of the world to show those without easy access to safe drinking water
World Map – color 60% of the world to show people who are always hungry
Activity: Look around where you live. Talk about what you see that shows you do not live in poverty
World Map – color 26% of the world to show people who are severely undernourished
Activity: Every 5 seconds a child dies from hunger. Using a stopwatch count out the number of children who die over 60 seconds.
Introduction to WorldVision donate.worldvision.org categories and let each child choose where they want to give.
– Earn money by selling toys/clothes/possessions
– Earn money by doing extra chores ($1 per extra chore)
World map – Color 24% of the world to show people who live in poor housing conditions or homeless
Activity: Take 100 pennies and spread them out on a table into 100 different spots to represent 100 different people. Then take the 100 pennies and give 60 pennies to two people (30 each), 40 pennies to 40 people (1 each), 58 people get nothing. This shows the distribution of wealth in the world.
World map – Color 15% of the world to show people who have no access to medical care
World map – Color 16% of the world to show primary children who are not attending school
World map – Street children –Color 22% of map to show the percentage of street children of the world’s children.
World map – Color 10% of the world to show children who have to work
World map – 90% of the world to show 90% of people who die in war are civilians
Activity: Come up with a plan to help end world poverty and write it down.
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thank you for this, I am going to use this for my 9 year homeschooled son
Thanks for the link! I’ve added it to our study.
This film is about the hunger and poverty brought about by Globalization. There are 10,000 people dying everyday due to hunger and malnutrition.
http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1081