The driving question for NextLesson is, “How can we prepare students for the real world?” We believe that part of the preparation starts with giving students projects and lessons that relate to their community and everyday life. When our incredible author community comes up with projects that expand that reach to the global community, we jump for joy.

This week’s projects do exactly that. Teacherpreneur, Sue Boudreau, asks student to take action on real world problems. We are also pleased to welcome the incredible organization, New Global Citizens, to our author community. Their project causes students to expand their view on the world’s health issues.

The Take Action Project
Sue’s inspirational project captivates students from its very beginning. Focusing on real world problems relating to energy, food and the environment, this is a project that is not only thought-provoking, but instead of letting students dwell on challenges faced by the world, this project has the visionary idea that every human can take action and make a real difference to their world, no matter how small. This project covers Common Core Standards in 7th and 8th grade Science and English Language Arts, teaching students important concepts in these subjects while instilling a sense of responsibility and accountability in students. When working on this project students not only decide on an action, but also plan key steps to take to implement their ideas and bring their project to its conclusion over seven weeks, while learning essential skills such as leadership, communication and collaboration skills. Students also get to create hype about their action by creating an ad campaign and posters to advertise their ideas, making this project a great combination of academics and fun. Check out this project on NextLesson.

Epidemics
New Global Citizens’ project deals with the real world health problem of epidemics and helps students realize the importance of public health campaigns. This project covers English Language Arts Common Core Standards in 7th, 11th and 12th grade and Science. Through a number of printable worksheets, interactive activities and remarkable reading materials, that form the core of this project, students are tasked with creating their own Public Service Announcements about a chosen disease at the end of their project. This project teaches key academic and 21st century skills such as research and communication skills. The best part about this project is the interactive and enjoyable teaching model, which captures the students’ attention, which is certainly challenging through traditional learning methods. You can find this project on NextLesson.