Lesson Plans to Help Build Global Knowledge

You may be familiar with the contest lesson plan that introduces the World of 8 Billion contest to your class, but have you checked out this year’s topical lesson plans? 

We’ve shared six Population Education lessons to help teachers introduce this year’s global topics: economics, energy, and wetlands. These free downloads include both a middle and high school lesson plan for each topic. These activities help generate students’ interest in the contest topics and expand their foundational content knowledge before filming. 

These lessons could be taught throughout the year, where they best fit in your curriculum, or specifically as a precursor to the filmmaking project. If the content falls outside your subject area, use the activities as an opportunity to collaborate with other teachers. Additionally, after your students submit their videos, they can be the experts and teach their classmates. Ask them to share their World of 8 Billion videos to celebrate their accomplishment and extend the learning!

Here you’ll find a link to each of the six featured lessons and information on how they help build skills and knowledge for participating in the contest. Even though lessons are labeled as middle school (MS) or high school (HS), both can work for your grade level with some scaffolding of the discussion questions. 

Economics Lesson Plans

• Chips of Trade (MS) gets students up and moving while unpacking real-world data connected to the economics of unequal global resource distribution. This lesson teaches core terms from economics, including resource scarcity, allocation, and inequality. Have students consider the many barriers to international trade to show how solutions aren’t always easy to implement, a crucial concept they need to address in their videos.
• Hill of Beans (HS) has students compare the wealth of an average person in the U.S. to a person living in the Central African Republic. This lesson helps students understand important economic concepts, including gross national income (GNI), purchasing power parity (PPP), and wealth inequality. Wealth data is uniquely shared using sound, which can spark creative ideas for students to present data in their videos.

Energy Lesson Plans

• Like Oil & Water (MS) is an inquiry-based lesson that has students use the engineering design process to clean up an oil spill. Students are asked to develop comprehensive solutions to the multifaceted challenges oil spills create. Emphasize that their solutions need to be actionable and sustainable, modeling what solutions earn high scores on the judging rubric.
• Lighting Up Our Lives (HS) has students analyze how energy poverty impacts people living in Monrovia, Liberia. Students then create sustainable solutions, an essential part of the World of 8 Billion challenge. They are encouraged to present to a classmate, which models giving and receiving peer feedback. This lesson also teaches empathy, a vital social-emotional skill for global citizenship.

Wetlands Lesson Plans

• In The News: Research for Tomorrow (MS) has students write, plan, and perform a news telecast. Research skills and media literacy are at the heart of this lesson, which are both central to participating in the video contest. Use the provided lesson plan rubric to have students conduct self and peer reviews of their presentations. Several topics are covered in this lesson, but stick to wetland topics to help students gather video content ideas.
• Bye Bye Birdie (HS) is a research-based lesson where students determine the criteria to protect endangered species and then advocate for the protection of a species of their choice. The lesson introduces key wetlands terms like ecosystem services, invasive species, and biodiversity. Students work on researching and communicating ideas concisely for an audience. Advise them to record their presentation to practice their film and editing techniques.

Thumbnail image credits: ID 231742182 @monkeybusiness | used under license from DepositPhotos.com