Current Issues

Are Amazon, Google, and other companies monopolies? Should we use antitrust legislation rein them in? Students read about and discuss the roots of anti-trust laws and whether they should be applied today. 

In this simulation, students play the role of striking teachers in order to explore the reasons and strategies behind recent teacher strikes.

What made 30,000 teachers in Los Angeles decide to go out on strike? In this lesson, students read short quotes from the news to better understand the issues at stake, and discuss the issues from their own perspective as students. 

Students look at photos, read about, and discuss some of the climate crises in 2018, then survey a range of actions being taken to address it.

Students compare the “Green New Deal” proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with President Roosevelt’s original New Deal. 

Students discuss President Trump’s prime-time speech about border security on January 8, 2019, and examine whether the facts back up his statements.

Now might be a good time to review what has happened over the past year,both in our lives and the wider world. In this activity, students share reflections with the help of a short video and consider a next step.  

50 years after the movement against the war in Vietnam reached its peak, students explore that movement - and consider why we don't have a more powerful anti-war movement today.

Many Americans believe that immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, are more likely to commit crimes than people born in the U.S. In fact, crime rates among immigrants are much lower than among native-born Americans. 

In this activity, students work in small groups to analyze charts containing...

This lesson invites students to examine the history of laws about people seeking asylum in the U.S. Students will consider who should be allowed to gain asylum today and how their cases should be treated.