The service learning plan I chose to write about dives into the subject of religious persecution. Here is the summary as described by the website: While studying the struggle against religious intolerance in United States history, students will research the current plight of various religious minorities around the world. They will focus on religious groups that are currently the victims of religious intolerance, and contact government officials both in the nations involved and in the United States. They will seek to eliminate religious persecution against these groups.You can look at this service learning project here. This plan covers many benefits that are described on the Inquiry in Social Studies MindMeister. The first is it stimulates awareness of controversial issues, which I think is probably the most important when covering a topics such as this. It also limits teacher bias by allowing the students to choose any religion they want to research. By doing this type of project the students will have to think like a social studies researcher, which is also listed in our Benefits.
The methods that the students will have to use to be effective in exposing religious intolerance will be exploration. The students will have to explore many areas of the world through websites to find religious intolerance. They will also have to use their discussion skills to determine the best course of action. The project calls for the students to contact government officials which will require them to hone their discussion/communication skills. The students will also use collaboration, listed under best practices, with government officials to expose religious intolerance. They will also have to use technology to contact the government officials in other nations. Without being familiar with the newest communication technologies the students will be less effective. By Being closely involved in each students activities most of the challenges should be taken care of. Making sure the students show the proper respect needed to government officials from other countries will be essential.
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I think this is a topic that needs to be discussed more frequently in schools. I like the part where you actually contact government officials in other countries to stress your concerns towards religious persecution. This service learning project teaches kids to be actively involved in politics (which unfortunately doesn't happen very often as exemplified in our turnout during presidential elections). You would have to monitor what they are writing in order to stray away from vernacular language to more academic language when contacting government officials. It would be really cool to see if they actually responded!
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