Pulitzer Center Update

News Bites and Lesson Plan of the Week: Cuban Youth

Image by Tracey Eaton. Cuba, 2015.

Dear Educators,

Here are this week's featured lesson plans and updates on the Pulitzer Center's Education Events:

News Bite Lesson: Cuban Youth

A plan for resuming commercial flights to Cuba is set to finalize this week. Introduce your students to the voices of young adults in Cuba through this week's news bite, which utilizes discussion and writing to investigate journalist-grantee Tracey Eaton's project "Cuban Youth: A New Dawn?"

Featured Lesson: Cuba in Transition

Our featured Lesson Plan of the Week was written by curriculum developer Melissa Quiter. Students are asked to analyze text and photography in order to evaluate their response to the following question: Is Cuba in the midst of positive change, negative change, or stagnation?

Education News: Debating Australian Mining Practices in Africa with Chicago Public School Students

Last week, journalist-grantees Will Fitzgibbon and Eleanor Bell met with students in Chicago public high schools to discuss their project "Fatal Extraction." In addition to learning how Will and Eleanor conducted their reporting, students broke into groups and debated mining practices from the perspectives of different stakeholders. Students were given a scenario where an Australian company wants to open a mine in an African nation. They were assigned the roles of workers' union rep, country president, mining company CEO and community leader. After 15 minutes, each group got to present their opinion of the hypothetical mining project to the class and answer questions from the perspectives of their assigned roles.

Will and Eleanor will meet with five D.C. schools this week to continue the discussion about mining practices in Africa.

Are you interested in bringing a Pulitzer Center journalist-grantee to your classroom in-person or over Skype? Contact [email protected]!

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