U2 Day 1-2: PD Discussion Topic

This lesson calls for students to discuss a community problem. What community problem would you have students discuss? Why?

I just received access to this section of PD and ironically, my school district is now on fall break and I was set to begin teaching Unit 2: Problem Solving, once we return from fall break. What I have planned, for discussion, in two weeks, is a pick of either the existing Food Desert in many of my student’s neighborhoods or the Digital Divide.

I will be discussing racism because there are a great deal of Hispanics in this community and there is a bit of racist comments coming from some of the students spurned from the “Moslem terrorist stereotype” that is running rampant in some Presidential campaigns at the present time. This has spilled over into other ethnic backgrounds in our own community.

Our students brought up the problem of trash on the streets in the neighborhood of our school. We used this as our discussion question.

Unemployment/Underemployment because even though the economy has recovered since the housing crash of 2008 and the implementation of Obama Care our citizens can find themselves employed but at low wage jobs and short hours creating an environment were they have to have multiple jobs to support themselves and their families.

My students really got into this topic. I think it was easy for us to find a local problem and run with it. I had my students do posters of the local problem. “School traffic/student parking”. I did pull the video online from TEDtalks, I think that is what it is called. (the video on parking fines and data to fix the issue… it also had info about traffic in NYC and determining rush hour) I think it really helped the students get the concept of using data to solve a problem. The students then worked on their posters for this and presented to the class. I really enjoyed seeing their ideas and input of where to get data from and what kind of data would be needed. Plus their resolutions were quite interesting!

I had my students discuss cleaning up the streets in the surrounding neighborhood.

My students come from a wide geographical area, with a wide range of community problems. And these are highly motivated students, so I think that I will allow them to choose a community problem that they are interested in.

I like to have students discuss a problem in the school community and their thoughts, such as dress code, school uniforms, tardy policy, cell phone policy, etc. so they can relate to it. I would also like them to choose issues in the broader community.

I am going to have my students to discuss the topic of a skate park being built in our town. I chose this topic because it has been debated for a few years now.

My students have much to say about community issues. I am thinking of extending this discussion to global versus community issues and having students explore www.gapminder.org to extend their thinking.

Our town is riddled with poor road conditions. I asked my class to come up with a solution to our problem. I asked them to demonstrate ways to prove that the roads were bad, possible solutions, and a plan of action.

Our school is located in an area where the homeless population is very high. I had students discuss a solution on what we could do to either help them out or find resources for the homeless so they could make their lives better.

Definitely the inability to find funding for technology for schools in our community. The low socioeconomic status for the area our school is located makes funding partners feel like they are investing their money in the wrong students due to criminal activity and lower estimates of educated people (or those wanting to go to college). Funding is used for other schools in more prominent areas.

the scenario I chose was:

The superintendent of XXXXXX County schools would like to find our if the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” Program is benefiting students of XXXXX County.

I am all for healthy eating ( a am ‘clean’ eater myself" ) however, I have noticed that students would prefer going all day without eating than eating the food that has been replaced in our cafe and vending machines. I want to see this from a students perspective.

I have students asking me , why our school district don’t have apps available in order to access or provide different services to the community. The problem here is to identify specific problems, find the right solution and provide technical support in order to improve the service.

Since my school is located in California, my students asked to address our water issue; thus, we worked on different solutions to help with our drought.

We funnel 4000+ students into a single school entrance every day. The traffic is epic and often makes the news during the first week of school. The students like to tackle this problem and try to propose a usable solution.

We recently moved into a new building and our district is looking at what to do with the old HS and 3 other pieces of district property. Our community lacks a down town and community center, so we will discuss what to do with the existing properties, how the students would them used, and the impact it will have on the entire community

I would have the students discuss the problem of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. Many students like the bay for recreational purposes and are familiar with the ecological problems the Chesapeake Bay is facing.