Global Dimension Blog

The international development charity Plan International has launched its fifth annual Shoot Nations global youth photography competition. The competition is free to enter, and open to anyone aged 11-25. Each year thousands of young people from more than 100 countries compete in the online competition - winning photos are exhibited at prestigious locations and prizes are presented at the UN headquarters in New York.

The theme for year's competition is City Living. For further details and to view previous winners, visit: www.shootnations.org.

The Times Educational Supplement has brought together some teaching resources for different age groups to help teach about the oil spill off the coast of Louisiana. These range from video clips explaining how it happened and what its effects might be, to suggestions for creative writing, such as a front-page article. They are free to use, but you may need to register with TES to download some of them.

See www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=6041639.

Update: the Geographical Association has also put together an excellent web page with lots of ideas for teaching secondary students about the oil spill: http://geography.org.uk/resources/oilspill 

These two short animations from Oxfam provide a great visual and accessible way to explore issues and debates on aid with your students.

Does aid work? How has aid made a positive difference to people’s lives? Further information at www.oxfam.org/en/video/2010/does-aid-work

Good aid - Delivering quality aid is not just about giving the right amount; it's about giving it in the right way. Further information at www.oxfam.org/en/video/2010/good-aid

WhoshouldIcheerfor.com is a website from the World Development Movement that ranks all the teams playing in the 2010 World Cup to find the most "supportable" on the basis of their efforts to eradicate poverty and social injustice. They've based their rankings on a variety of indicators such as: Life Expectancy, Maternal Mortality, Carbon Emissions, National Income per person, Spending on Aid / the Military, Women in Government, and so on. These are taken mainly from the UN Human Development Report but they've also included Number of people without enough to eat from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and Happiness, from the New Economics Foundation's Happy Planet Index.

Who Should I Cheer For is a great source of information to prompt classroom discussion during the World Cup. In the "How We Did It" section of the site WDM explain how they came up with the rankings, in terms of which issues they felt were 'good' and 'bad'. Do you or your students agree with their perspective? What other criteria would you use - and which country team will you be cheering for? 

Do you do any fundraising in your school?

We are planning to write guidelines for responsible fundraising with young people, so we'd like to start off by getting a picture of what sort of fundraising is currently going on in schools.

If you are a teacher in a school in the United Kingdom, please take a few minutes to complete our online survey. There are only 10 questions. Please could you do this before the end of the summer term 2010 - and feel free to pass the survey link to other teachers, so we can get as big a response as possible.

Schools survey: www.surveymonkey.com/s/78WJZQZ.

May's been a busy month as I've been wading through a backlog of great global teaching resources to add to our online database. Here goes... it's a long list!

Primary resources

• Going Up, Growing Up from Manchester DEP looks at using peer education and global dimension methodologies to help the transition from primary to secondary school
• Global Learning though Global Weeks from Cheshire DEC aims to support primary teachers who want to run a Global Focus Week in their school.
• The Planet Cork website from the Cork Industry Federation introduces this great renewable resource to children and has an emphasis on sustainability.
• The Silence Seeker is a sweet story for ages 5-7 - Joe hears that "silence seekers" have moved in next door, so he tries to help one of them by finding quiet places in the city. 

Secondary resources (ages 11-14)

• The Renewable World website provides a cross-curriculum resource on the importance of using renewable materials in a world of dwindling resources. 
• Right to Food from the British Red Cross examines the important topic of food security and addresses some common misperceptions about hunger.
• It Makes You Think from Tide~ Global Learning and the Association for Science Education is packed full of ideas for bringing global issues into Science.

(ages 11-16)

• The UN Matters Teaching Pack introduces students to the United Nations with the aim of developing their understanding of the UN system and how it works for peace, development and human rights.
• The SEAL and the Global Dimension website aims to support teachers in embedding the Global Dimension within the SEAL (Social and Emotional Learning) programme, engaging school pupils in global and development issues.
• The PARTICIPATE website uses the work of artists from Benin, China, Iraq, New Zealand and Nigeria to help teach Global Citizenship through Art and Design.

(ages 14-16)

• Going Global?, Is the Future Sussed? and For Richer and Poorer? are three new GCSE Geography Toolkits from the Geographical Association
  

And finally, two resources for secondary map fanatics: 

• SHOW®/World provides great visuals - select a global issue and watch the countries on the map change their size.
• Collins World Watch is a visual guide to the current state of the world's demographic, economic and environmental situation, using the World Bank's World Development Indicators to present 30 illustrated spreads.

This term's issue of the independent school magazine Conference & Common Room includes an article by Kate Brown, Schools Programme Manager at DEA (the education charity that manages the Global Dimension Website and works to support global learning). It discusses school links, fundraising and global learning.

You can read it online, turn to page 16 for her article: Conference & Common Room online issue.