Connected Minds 1: Introductions and Interdependence – Fall 2005

Students learn how different parts of the world depend on each other for basic needs such as food and clothing. Basic concepts such as trade, resources, imports and exports are explored. Students communicate with other students describing each other’s daily lives. Students share further details about their country as well. After receiving a response from other students, your students explore similarities, differences, and surprises between cultures.

Connected Minds 2: Social Justice and Change for the Future – Spring 2006

Students learn about the topic of Social Justice, Change and the Future. This topic allows students to think about their future and the future of their community. Students discuss on the Web Forum community their feelings about social justice, change and views of the future. Students share details about the future of their own lives as well. After receiving responses from the other schools, students explore ways to promote social justice in their own futures.

Civics Education Curriculum – Spring 2006

This Civics Education Curriculum is international in focus and themes but local in execution. Although the curriculum is designed to be used as a semester or yearlong endeavor, its individual components may also be used as stand alone lessons. This curriculum employs the Internet as a tool for teachers and their students to: promote a cross-cultural dialogue that fosters tolerance, respect, and a better understanding of the governments of their respective countries; build strong communities through the sharing of ideas; and nurture the development of knowledgeable, involved, and responsible citizens.

The goal of this civics education curriculum is to provide lesson plans, instructional activities, resources, materials, and online projects that teachers in the United States and in participating countries can use as they prepare their students to be informed, responsible, effective and committed citizens.

Its five basic themes, the common core, are derived from and meet the standards of learning set forth in the U.S. National Standards for Civics Education for secondary schools as developed by The Center for Civics Education. These five themes are: Civic Life, Politics, and Government; Foundations of the Political System; Principles of Democracy; Other Nations and World Affairs; and Roles of the Citizen.

The curriculum is structured to provide the teacher with resources, instructional activities, strategies, and in-class and online projects that can be used to actively engage students in the learning process and to provide students with the tools that they need to become the informed, responsible, and active citizens that are essential to sustaining democracy. Its goal is also to empower the student to become a lifelong learner, an individual who uses higher order thinking skills to understand, apply, analyze, and evaluate information and make reasoned and humane decisions.

In addition, a broad range of international electronic and print resources dealing with civics education, government, and political theory, and U.S. state frameworks for civics and government education, have been used in the development of this curriculum. In each of the five themes, civic knowledge, intellectual and participatory skills, and civic dispositions are addressed. Internet and World Wide Web resources are provided to complement the textbooks, print materials, and other resources available in the schools using this curriculum.

Live Chats!

PH staff moderate a live international chat! A perennial favorite, students truly enjoy engaging their partners while teachers enjoy the controlled, educational space.