Having surveyed a medley of topics that bear strongly on this site's theme
(e.g., accepting differences, recognizing bias, supporting civic values, teaching about religion and
nonreligion, promoting public civility and tolerance, and understanding
multiculturalism), we list here several lesson plans of likely academic value,
awaiting evaluative comments on lesson usefulness. We invite feedback from
teachers on any lesson used with students and will consider this feedback as we
pursue our effort to locate
a bank of quality lessons for linking to this website.
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. In the U.S. today, many people's
fundamental needs are not being met. Food, shelter, medical care, and safety
from violence are elusive for increasing numbers of people. In a spirit of
altruism, individuals, faith-based organizations and secular groups undertake
humanitarian efforts to meet these people's basic needs and -- in the process --
discover that other, more profound needs are being met for the server as well as
the served.
In this lesson, students explore the meaning of altruism and the bonds that are
created when people take care of each other. Resources include segments from
RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, Web sites, and guest speakers. As a culminating
activity, students explore and synthesize the themes of the lesson through a
service learning project.
Grades 5-8, make sure you look at: Background, Procedures for Teachers, and
Organizers for Students
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. Jewish culture provides a lens through
which students can observe how traditions endure and are transformed over time.
In this lesson plan, middle school students learn about Jewish culture as a
living, changing tradition and relate Judaism to traditions in their own life.
Students learn about Jewish culture from a variety of perspectives: They look at
Jewish religious and secular traditions including Jewish holidays, sacred and
secular music, dance, and visual arts. They also consider the relationship of
religious traditions to cultural and secular traditions. Resources include
segments from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, Web sites, and interviews with guest
speakers. As a culminating activity, students explore and synthesize the themes
of the lesson through arts activities.
Grades 6-8, make sure you look at: Background, Procedures for Teachers, and
Organizers for Students
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. One of the most emotional and
controversial issues raised by the First Amendment is the question of the role
religion should play in public institutions. The First Amendment prohibits
government from establishing a religion and protects each individual's right to
practice (or not practice) any faith without government interference. In this
lesson, students will focus on one aspect of the presence of religion in public
institutions: the controversy surrounding religion in the public schools.
Through research and interviews with community members, students examine
different perspectives on this issue. They then act as a fact-finding commission
whose job is to offer a recommendation to a school administration about its
policy on religion in the school. This lesson would work well in the
context of a unit on the United States Constitution and the events that led to
the ratification of the Bill of Rights.
Grades 6-8, make sure you look at: Background, Procedures for Teachers, and
Organizers for Students
EDSITEment lesson (National Endowment for the Humanities). This lesson’s goal is to challenge stereotypes about cultures unfamiliar to
us; to expand awareness of the range of factors that help constitute a cultural
identity; to research, organize, and present information about everyday life in
an unfamiliar culture; to create an imaginative firsthand account of life in an
unfamiliar culture.
ERIC lesson to help students come to understand the prejudices and
discrimination that have existed throughout history and continue as negative
aspects of our society today.
ERIC lesson plan. Seventeen Supreme Court decisions are the basis for
discussion on First Amendment Right, Freedom of Religion. Any and all can be
discussed in depth or simply touched upon. The wide range of cases help students
to understand that this "freedom" has limits and bounds and is
constantly under attack.
ERIC lesson plan: The student will experience racial indifference first hand.
EDSITEment lesson. Lesson goal: to understand the historical significance of Galileo's
scientific achievements; to explore the element of "inevitability" in
our perception of historical developments; to examine the values underlying
historic choices.
EDSITEment lesson. Political developments leave a clear trace in the life of a nation, usually
marked by legislative mileposts like the Fourteenth Amendment, which dictates
equal protection for all, and the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the
right to vote. But such developments have a cultural dimension as well, often
evident in the attitudes and assumptions implicit in political arguments.
EDSITEment lesson. Eight lessons on the themes (1) To learn about Socrates and his significance
within Western civilization; (2) To analyze the arguments on the rule of law
that Socrates presents in the Crito; (3) To explore the claims of law on
personal conscience; (4) To consider the relationship between individual rights
and the rule of law in contemporary society.
EDSITEment lesson. Eight lessons on the goals of (1) To gain experience in working with
eyewitness accounts of historical events; (2) To explore issues related to the
evaluation of historical evidence; (3) To consider the uses of historical
evidence within different kinds of history; (4) To recognize that historical
evidence may raise questions rather than provide answers about a past event
ERIC lesson. In this lesson students are engaged in a study of the multicultural character
of the local community. Community resources, e.g., people, places, things, and
events, are incorporated into the classroom/field-based investigation.
ERIC lesson plan. Students will be encouraged to think about What is
truth? and how different people can have different interpretations,
traditions, cultures, languages, and, ultimately, belief systems or religions to
explain truth. Students will examine various cultures and history to see how
beliefs can be learned. Hopefully, an awareness of the importance of religious
tolerance will be developed.
ERIC lesson plan. The intent of this lesson is to provide various activities
to give students a deeper understanding of human relationships and of
intolerance that has existed in our society, both past and present.
ERIC lesson plan. A bill of rights is needed in a free society in order to
protect the rights of the individual from abuses by the government. Government
rarely acts against the interests of the majority, and often the beneficiary of
a specific decision is one of the minority. Yet, the entire society benefits
from the protection of minority rights. Oftentimes protecting the minority
causes great controversy, but each person benefits ultimately. We are all a part
of some minority, whether it be race, religion, economics, political beliefs, or
social beliefs. We all need our individual rights protected.
EDSITEment lesson. Goals: (1) To learn about the discovery of Kennewick Man and what this
ancient skeleton suggests about the earliest inhabitants of North America; (2)
To examine the controversy surrounding Native American efforts to rebury
Kennewick Man in accordance with their traditions and federal law; (3) To
explore the relationship between science and religion as reflected in their
shared concern about human origins; (4) To gain experience in the close analysis
of argument.
New York Times Learning Network: This lesson encourages students to defend or
refute whether hate groups should enjoy the same right of free speech as
guaranteed by the First Amendment as individuals and groups that promote less
controversial beliefs, as well as whether or not the Internet should censor Web
sites that promote such groups.
New York Times Learning Network: Students examine the roles of cliques in
schools and ways in which schools can foster tolerance among diverse groups of
students. The class creates a survey addressing these issues to be distributed
among a large portion of the student body, and students individually share their
thoughts and experiences in personal reflective essays.
New York Times Learning Network: In this lesson, students examine different
ways people arrive at and understand what "the truth" is, focusing
particularly on the evolution versus creationism debate that has been a
"hot topic" in education throughout the 20th century.
Columbia Curriculum Exchange: The students will gain knowledge of historical
figures using an interviewing technique. (Might we suggest freethinkers?)
Columbia Curriculum Exchange: To begin to understand people of different
cultures, students must first know how all cultures are alike and different.
There are certain things that all cultures have, whether or not they are exactly
the same. These things are called cultural universals and include such things as
religion, values, what is considered right and wrong, games, music, rites of
passage, etc.
Columbia Curriculum Exchange: The relevance of this lesson is that students
are asked to recognize that our legal-political system has developed through a
process of moving from philosophical ideals to compromised working models.
Columbia Curriculum Exchange: a unit of instruction that helps students to
understand the term ethics, learn what ethical questions are, and develop a
self-checking ethics guide.
Columbia Curriculum Exchange: The formation of a government, and the
development of laws, is a concept taught from the beginning to the end of
school. The lesson helps students understanding of governmental systems, the
laws they create and the punishments assigned for the violation of those laws.
Through the use of a cooperative learning activity the students will develop
their own government, author laws, and designate the consequence for the
violation of those laws. Will atheists be allowed?
Columbia Education Center. Students are asked to write a Bill of Rights for a new democratic country.
This activity is designed to show students the problems faced by the Founding
Fathers. This activity should be conducted as an introduction to the study of
the creation of the Bill of Rights.
