Educational tools

Video animation, an infographic with information, and a class activity. A short video with an exploration of the issue of migration, with a focus on refugees and asylum seekers. The resource aims to clarify terms around migration, inform teachers and children about migration, and also provide teachers with the methodologies necessary and approriate to approach such a sensitive topic. The animation focuses on the parallels between the experience of current refugees specifically from Syria and that of Irish people during the Great Famine. The objective is to foster empathy among children.

An activity and enquiry pack about values and identity for SMSC and British Values. This handbook contains lesson plans and resources for teachers to use. It is in 3 parts and explores 3 areas: personal, family, and community identity; national identity and what this might mean; global identity and citizenship. It explores the values which underlie our identity - where they come from and how they are formed. It critically addresses the concept and teaching of 'British Values' which is now compulsory in schools in UK and instead explores how young people adopt values for themselves through role models, discussion and dialogue. It explores 'universal values' and how the research surrounding these provide a powerful alternative for young people for Global Citizenship. This resource is therefore useful for any country to use with little adaptation when looking for activities to discuss their own national and global identities.

> An English version is also available  here

> A Latvian version is also available here

The tomato is the favourite vegetable for half of the Austrians. Due to their good taste and bright red colour, it was referred to as "paradise apple", in Austria today easily recognisable by the name "Paradeiser". Anything other than heavenly are the cultivation and sale of the tomatoes in our globalised age: most tomatoes in our supermarkets are from the Spanish region of Almeria. Precarious working conditions of pickers, use of pesticides and huge water consumption have come to the agenda. These are just some aspects that will be addressed. Activities are presented in an interactive way, so that children from 6 to 10 years get to know the tomato from different perspectives: learn exciting facts about them, look at Almeria from space, develop a seasonal calendar for local vegetables, locating the origin of supermarket vegetables identified by the labels and discover ancient tomato varieties.

For every unit teaching goals, methods, worksheets, a detailed sequence plan and background information for teachers are included.

Three topics to guide teachers and pupils through environmental sustainability, biodiversity, and human relations: plastic, tomatoes, and kindness

> The original version  in German on Plastic is available  here

> The original version  in German on Tomatoes is available  here

> An English version on Plastic is also available here  

> An English version on Tomatoes is also available  here

Plastic is an indispensable part of our daily lives. Children’s rooms are full of plastic toys, water from lightweight plastic bottles is popular, our food is wrapped in plastic, our kitchens are full of plastic bowls and when we buy things everywhere plastic bags are used. Plastic is widely used and popular because of its characteristics. However, our full life of plastic gives the environment a hard fight. Rotting plastic takes up to 500 years. Sooner or later, large parts of the plastic waste end up in the sea. There are now even plastic islands in the sea. Many animals mistake the plastic waste with food, which often has deadly consequences. In addition, the water quality suffers from the plasticisers. Is plastic a curse or a blessing? Is it harmful to the human body? Would a life without plastic be possible at all? Are there any alternatives? And how can I approach this complex issue to 7 - 10-year olds?

Tomatoes are the favourite vegetable of many Europeans. Due to their good taste and bright red colour, it was referred to as "paradise apple". Anything other than heavenly are the cultivation and sale of the tomatoes in our globalised age: most tomatoes in our supermarkets are from the Spanish region of Almeria. Precarious working conditions of pickers, use of pesticides and huge water consumption have come to the agenda. These are just some aspects that will be addressed. Activities are presented in an interactive way, so that children from 6 to 10 years get to know the tomato from different perspectives: learn exciting facts about them, look at Almeria from space, develop a seasonal calendar for local vegetables, locating the origin of supermarket vegetables identified by the labels and discover ancient tomato varieties.

> An English version is also available  here

> A Latvian version is also available here

> A Bulgarian version is also available here

Plastic is an indispensable part of our daily lives. Children’s rooms are full of plastic toys, water from lightweight plastic bottles is popular, our food is wrapped in plastic, our kitchens are full of plastic bowls and when we buy things everywhere plastic bags are used. Plastic is widely used and popular because of its characteristics. However, our full life of plastic gives the environment a hard fight. Rotting plastic takes up to 500 years. Sooner or later, large parts of the plastic waste end up in the sea. There are now even plastic islands in the sea. Many animals mistake the plastic waste with food, which often has deadly consequences. In addition, the water quality suffers from the plasticisers. Is plastic a curse or a blessing? Is it harmful to the human body? Would a life without plastic be possible at all? Are there any alternatives? And how can I approach this complex issue to 7 - 10-year olds?

> An English version is also available here

At the beginning the pupils brainstorm their ideas connected with the word water and then they think over the connections among water and products we use. In small groups they are given cut-out cards with different products. Common task will be to put the cards in the order depending on how much water they think is used to make the products (from the most water intensive to the least). In a class discussion pupils guess how much water is used within the process of production and in next step they are given mathematical task to calculate exactly how much water is needed for production of e. g.1 kg of rice. They also read the information about the product, conditions for planting and place of origin. In the end of the lesson pupils discuss the meaning of the term “virtual water” and why it is important, what are the impacts and consequences for our decision making process about consumption.

Unit 5 of a wider Manual

> An English version is also available here

Brainstorm with the students on what kind of work they have already done in their lives and what do they consider under the word  “work”. Discuss with them other question connected with working and also the question if they think that it is common that children of their age living in another part of world do regular work instead of going to school. Let them to imagine themselves in that situation. Then the children are asked to put themselves into another role (they choose one card with description of their new personality, name, age and its life). Ask all the children the same questions as How does your house look like etc. – it will help them realize important facts. Tell students that you are now going to read out the statements describing various situations or events. Every time they agree with the statement, they should take one step forward. If they don‘t agree, they should remain in place. After that make evaluation and reflection. Try to ask questions to guide the students towards expressing the causes of a particular child’s situation or his/her family‘s situation and its consequences.

>  Here you find a German version of the activities.

The learning unit consists of two parts and can take up to 12 hours.

Part one provides warming-up activities to get in contact with the topic of biography in a playful, child-oriented way. It includes 1. a question activity to learn more about each other, 2. an activity that invides children to complete sentences about their emotions and share it, 3. an activity to form changing groups according to different characteristics, 4. an activity that invides the children to position themselves in four different cornes according to different biographical questions and 5. a game that allows to lie regarding their own biographies. Each activity takes about 10 – 15 minutes.

Part two focuses on the consciousness raising and visualisation of the children biographies. 
It consists of 1. an activity that motivates children to invent an imaginary biography according to different pictures and fotos of children from all over the world, 2. a drawing activity to create their own trees of life, 3. an activity to locate their family migration movements on a world map and 4. a creative process to develop their own family emblem.

>  Here you find a German version of the activity discription and the working sheets: 

The children imagine they are sailing to a new continent, but to get there they must choose to cast non-essentials overboard.

Children are divided into small groups and each group gets an envelope with all Wants and Needs cards - these are the things they are packing to take with them for life in the new country. Ask each group to open the envelope, spread out all their cards and examine them.
The boat is setting sail and step by step the teacher tells them a story about their journey to a new land. The story contains little challenges and turnarounds so that the children have to throw overboard ballast weight. That means that they have to decide step by step together which Wants and Needs cards they have put on a pile and keept the cards they would need to survive in new land. 
At the end end of their boat trip to a new land they have only a few cards left, they stick them on a poster and explain what they brought to survive, to grow and develop a new society.

Part of the debriefing and evaluation should include the following aspects: group process on decision making; what are human needs? what do people need to survive? to grow up? and to develop well? 

Full title:  Move-te pela Mudança. Sensibilização e mobilização dos jovens como agentes de mudança a partir da espiritualidade cristã no contexto da cidadania global [Move yourself for Change. Sensitization and mobilization of young people as agents of change through the Christian spirituality in the context of global citizenship]

This toolkit presents 6 planning options representing 6 units of the programme: 1. Politics, Ethics and Religion; 2. Values and Christian Ethics; 3. Ethics and Economy; 3. The Civilization of Love; 4. Equal Opportunities; 5. The dignity of work.