Subject: SEL (Social-Emotional Learning)
Lesson Length: 1 - 2 hours
Topic: Positivity, Citizenship, Responsibility
Brief Description:
Students will create a comic to illustrate a task that has a positive impact on a community.
Know Before You Start: Students should be familiar with the US Census Bureau.
Hook:
- Ask students:
- “Which communities are you a part of?”
- “What does our community need?”
- “What can we do to help our community thrive?”
Activity:
- Explain there are many tasks that we can complete to make a positive impact on our community. However, students will identify where their community may need help the most by analyzing data.
- Have students explore the US Census Bureau website (https://data.census.gov/) to gather data about their community.
- Have students identify strengths and areas for growth in their community based on the data on topics like education, housing, employment, and health.
- Have students share their findings in small groups or pairs. In these groups, students will also brainstorm potential ways they could make an impact on the topic they found needs improvement.
- Have students create a comic that illustrates a task that would have a positive impact on their community. Encourage students to include statistics or evidence they found to support their task.
Closure:
- Have students reflect on everyone's comics:
- Which task(s) may have the biggest effect on a community?
- Which task(s) might they like to do when giving back to their community?
- Students will post their comics on a bulletin board for their school community to gain ideas about how to make a positive impact and gain insight into the community they live in.
- Encourage students to carry out the impactful tasks they created.
- Share with your students that they looked at data about the community they live in, but they are also members of networked communities like communities of practice, interests, and place.
Differentiation:
- Allow students to use the speech-to-text feature.
- Allow students to work in pairs or groups as needed.
- Allow students to use the voiceover to read their comics aloud.
- Allow students the opportunity to use FAQs and video tutorials about the Census website to support their exploration and data collection activity.
- Provide a graphic organizer with major topic categories to support students with their data collection.
Resources:
- Comic to print or display: Comic.
- Graphic Organizers:
- Books:
- Videos:
- Website: https://data.census.gov/
Suggested Content Packs:
Make a comic about Rural Life
Make a comic about Urban Life
Make a comic about Suburban Life
Make a comic about High School
Suggested Story Starters:
