Teens and Social Issues

Typically, the average teenager won't spend as much time contemplating or researching the social issues of our times as they would spend updating their MySpace sites. Not true, if they want a passing grade on their first HTML Web-Site project in my class.

I'm having much fun watching them learn about something more serious and relevant to our society, their society.... the world they live in.

Students were able to select their project topics. The only criteria was that it had to be a social issue relevant to a significant number of people at large.... No, the latest hot rods, sports team or music video's don't count as social issues....

Here are some of the topics they've come up with:

• Teen Pregnancy
• Terrorism
• Global Warming
• Forest Fires and the resulting pollution
• Alcoholism
• steroid Use in Athletics
• MySpace Dangers
• High School Dropout Rate
• Government Eavesdropping
• Animal Cruelty

Outstanding issues to tackle! Be sure to check my "student work" links on my website, as I intend to provide links to some of the student projects.

I got this idea from attending a fantastic session on how to teach the Real World... Check out Jerram Froese's blog and read "Real Teaching, Real World". As we share and learn from each other's Blogs, we will enrich the lives of our students!