Social Action Immersion Lesson: What social issues are people fighting for?

Today's experience is designed so that you can see a wide variety social issues that people care about.  The links below combined with your handout will guide you.  These sites may even send you to additional links and organizations. It is important to go into this search with a serious attitude.  None of these subjects are to be taken lightly. The goal is for you to not only be exposed to a number of issues, but also to begin to narrow down topics that  you care about and want to pursue during our social action unit.  This post will also be a resource to you later down the road when you are researching.

General Searching for Issues and Topics
The Free Child Project chronicles ways that kids are trying to change the world.  This link will lead you to a list of social issues that kids have shown interest in.  Click through some of those issues to find basic information as well as further links to organizations doing something about the issue.  Remember that ultimately your audience will be a child, so keep that in mind as you are searching.

Environmental
At Our Earth, you can search for various environmental protection groups and find ones making a difference in New York City.

Animal Rights
ASPCA works for the rights of animals. Know ahead of time that some animal rights issues are hard to see. Click only on what you are comfortable with.

Local Poverty
The Robinhood Foundation works to fight poverty in New York City. Click on the link to see who they are helping and about their core mission.

 International Povery
 Scroll down to the bottom of this wikipedia entry on "World on Fire" to find links to all of the charities that were mentioned in the video.

Human Rights
Amnesty International fights for human rights. 


Human Trafficking:
If you are interested in this topic, please see Ms. Robbins for websites to direct you towards both international and local organizations.

At home (or if you have time) if you are interested in the arts and how they connect to social action, check out these links:

Art and Social Action: This link is actually to a lesson plan for an art class, but you can scroll down to the "resources" list and beyond to find links toartists who made social action statements

Great Protest Songs: This blog has a collection of songs and videos that show the history of what people have been fighting for and against by studying music. You will have to watch the video portion at home. A google search will also lead you to other websites that showcase protest songs.