Four years ago I did a study on world poverty with my boys. It covered topics like poverty, lack of education, hunger, war, and the contrast between our world and the developing world. I included several YouTube videos and many of them had dramatic pictures of life in poverty. I’m now revamping the study for my youngest child. Since she is only six, I have avoided the topic of the sex trade and graphic portrayals of violence.
When I first did the study, I gathered the statistics from several different places. While I do believe they are accurate, I may have some figures a little incorrect. Some activity ideas were taken from Connect the Thoughts: Global Poverty and Hunger.
Here is the study in the order we plan to complete it. I separated it into different categories to make it easier to read.
Introduction
- DVD – If the World Were a Village: A Story About the World’s People
– 25 minutes
- Place dots on a world map to represent the percentage of the world’s population on each continent
- What is poverty – 3 minute video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL-8HPdBroc
Clean Water
- A Life Like Mine
pg 6-17 Need for Clean Water
- World Map – color 25% of the world to show those without easy access to safe drinking water
- This is Gladys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8STrs78yxO0
Hunger
- A Life Like Mine
- World Map – color 60% of the world to show people who are always hungry
- Play Free Rice
- World Hunger and Poverty video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mfq72bUVDM
- Activity: Look around where you live. Talk about what you see that shows you do not live in poverty
- Play Free Rice
- 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.
- Extreme Poverty and Hunger http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc2L2DkIK-w
- Play Free Rice
- Chicken a la Carte http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/1081
- Introduction to WorldVision categories and let child choose where she wants to give.
- Earn money by selling toys/clothes/possessions
- Earn money by doing extra chores ($1 per extra chore)
Housing
- A Life Like Mine
- World map – Color 24% of the world to show people who live in poor housing conditions or homeless
- Dhaka Dreams – Street Children in Dhaka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHMvGNpSmwg
- Poverty in Africa – In Your Eyes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt4aWojF9Rg
- Activity: Take 100 pennies (or tokens) 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.
- Poor vs Rich http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i22DvoyuCOc
Health
- A Life Like Mine
- World map – Color 15% of the world to show people who have no access to medical care
- Poverty video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=526BTs_DRoE
Education
- A Life Like Mine
- World map – Color 16% of the world to show primary children who are not attending school
- Lack of Education http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1_xlXxDYVI
- Lack of Education in Rural Punjab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WrOG8y1PpA
Play
- A Life Like Mine
- Troye Sivan For Them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJxFp6odEYE
Love
- A Life Like Mine
- World map – Street children –Color 22% of map to show the percentage of street children of the world’s children.
- We are the Children, Where is the Equality http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVdRN789DKI
Child Labor
- A Life Like Mine
- World map – Color 10% of the world to show children who have to work
- Child Labor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruh0O_mj1v0
War
- A Life Like Mine
- World map – 90% of the world to show 90% of people who die in war are civilians
- Tell Me Why – Declan Galbraith http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s_Bsw5sn28
Causes of Poverty
- Causes of poverty pg 12-13 Lack of local growth of food Connect the Thoughts Global Poverty and Hunger
- Famine in Kenya http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCWyDewuS4Y
- Causes of poverty pg 13-14 Lack of infrastructure Connect the Thoughts Global Poverty and Hunger
- The End of Poverty – Our Homework http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnOJHVdZbJ0&NR=1
- Causes of poverty pg 14 Lack of technology Connect the Thoughts Global Poverty and Hunger
- Causes of poverty pg 14 Poverty Connect the Thoughts Global Poverty and Hunger
- 30 Hour Famine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij9V00YBsxM
- Causes of poverty pg 14 Lack of education Connect the Thoughts Global Poverty and Hunger
- Cartoon Unicef – education http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5R4jAxKY-I
- Causes of poverty pg 15 Lack of concern or too much greed Connect the Thoughts Global Poverty and Hunger
- Dare you to move http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAIp2nceZwk
- Read James 1:27
- Activity: Come up with a plan to help end world poverty and write it down.
Materialism
- Material World Mali pg 14-21
- Play Free Rice
- Material World South Africa pg 22-27
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Ethiopia pg 28-35
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Mongolia pg 40-47
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Japan pg 48-54
- Play Free Rice
- Material World China pg 57-63
- Play Free Rice
- Material World India pg 65-71
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Bhutan pg 72-79
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Thailand pg 80-87
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Vietnam pg 88-95
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Uzbekistan pg 96-103
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Cuba pg 106-111
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Guatemala pg 112-119
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Argentina pg 120-125
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Brazil pg 126-133
- Play Free Rice
- Material World United States pg 136-143
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Mexico pg 144-151
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Haiti pg 154-161
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Iceland pg 162-169
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Western Samoa pg 170-175
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Germany pg 180-185
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Russia pg 186-191
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Albania pg 192-197
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Italy pg 198-203
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Spain pg 204-209
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Great Britain pg 210-215
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Bosnia pg 216-223
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Iraq pg 228-235
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Kuwait pg 236-241
- Play Free Rice
- Material World Israel pg 242-247
- Play Free Rice
Action
- Count out how many grains of rice fit in 1/4 cup and then determine how many cups of rice have been donated through Free Rice so far.
- Choose and fund project at Worldvision with money earned.
How long did the whole study take you? How frequently would you do activities/lessons? I LOVE this idea and plan, and can’t wait to use it with my 3, but trying to figure out how to fit it in with our year plan.
It was probably a couple days a week over the school year. We did it with other things.
I am so touched by such a thoughtful and well intentioned post. It literally brought tears to my eyes just scrolling down the lesson. Tears for the sad reality of many around the world but tears for hope. Our children will be the ones who create a loving, United and peaceful world where love trumps money and we ensure nutrition for all beings. Thank you so much for sharing this lesson. It’s such a beautiful and difficult lesson and very necessary.
Thanks so much for your reply. Will be starting this soon!
I just started homeschooling my 7 year old daughter this year and find so much inspiration from your blog.
I am really hoping to do this unit with my daughter but was wondering how watching the videos affected your children? My daughter is quite sensitive and I’m not sure if they would be too upsetting for her.
The other questions I have is how did you calculate the percentages on the map, did you colour the actual countries effected and did you use the same map each time or colour different ones?
Thanks so much for sharing all of your wonderful ideas.
Watching the videos has been positive for my kids. Some of the videos were difficult and brought along tears, but they were positive in that it changed my children’s perspective. I can’t say how appropriate they would be for your child though. If you are unsure, maybe you can pick out one of the tamer videos here and see how she does with it.
For the maps, we just colored a percentage of the page – water and land. We didn’t color specific countries and used a new map each time. It was to give my child a greater understanding of what the percentage looked like. If I was doing it with an older child who already understood percentages, I might do it differently focusing on some of the countries. HTH
This was a great unit study! We did this back in September, and I think it was so eye-opening for my kids (ages 8 and 10). I hope it leaves a lasting impact on them. I think my son (10) was more moved to do something, he decided to sell a bunch of his toys, and is going to give some of the money to World Vision.
Awesome! I’m happy to hear that it worked well for you! It has been eye-opening for all 3 of my kids. It has been 4-5 years since I did it with my older kids and we talk about these issues from time to time. These issues have really impacted their perspective on life.
oh, I love this. we just finished reading a book about Swedish emigrants and my three boys (7,7 &6) were really interested. I loved it, as well, and it got the thirst going for something just like this unit study! Their hearts are still so tender and it is so easy to forget they do not realize there are people who actually die because they are hungry. They can’t go to Kroger when they run out of food.
Our church is very missions focused and I think studies like this are the perfect primer for missions!
Looking forward to browsing through your blog!