Threats to nature persist despite global efforts to save our planet. Is it time to get tough and make killing nature an international crime? Amira, a wild baby elephant, is buried after she was caught in a poacher’s trap, Sare, Aceh Besar, Indonesia, 24...
Most students, aware of the devastating effects of climate change, favor stronger protections for nature. But have they considered what course of action might be needed if “‘standard’ save-the-world activities” fail to stir change, to use author Paul Spencer Sochaczewski’s words? Spencer Sochaczewski looks at the gray areas relating to how to protect the environment. His piece encourages students to consider multiple sides to a complex issue, and invites them to consider the motivations and tactics of changemakers outside the mainstream.
Overcrowding, a flow of migrants, lack of resources — so many reasons Indigenous communities in Canada and elsewhere are vulnerable to COVID-19. Carol Dube, husband of Joyce Echaquan, is hugged by one of his sons as he breaks down while reading a statement in...
COVID-19 is a monumental news story, and Natasha Comeau has trained her reporting lens on Indigenous communities in Canada to capture a larger truth — that underprivileged peoples around the world are suffering disproportionately from the coronavirus. Her reporting is supported by an interview with an expert who predicted how many ventilators hospitals would need for COVID-19 by studying the H1N1 virus, which struck the United States in 2009. Comeau’s story is an example of how scientific research, on the surface obscure, is actually relevant to everyday concerns. Like MacCorkle, she uses simple language that non-experts can understand, ensuring the piece resonates with a broader audience.
Incarcerated people in a California prison run a newspaper that raises awareness of social justice issues and offers a new chance to those in prison. Jonathan Chiu (Photo by Christie Goshe) This story won a third prize in News Decoder’s Ninth Storytelling...
Elena Towsend-Lerdo introduces us to a convicted murderer who finds redemption at a newspaper run by prisoners in California’s oldest jail. The San Quentin News is online and accessible to readers around the world. Townsend-Lerdo interviews Jonathan Chiu, who was released after serving 16 years of his 50-year sentence, and a journalism professor who trains prisoners, providing first-hand insight into incarceration and rehabilitation. Those are meaty issues, but the student at La Jolla Country Day School avoids sweeping statements to offer us a peek into the U.S. criminal justice system and a unique path to atonement. Who could your students interview to learn about criminal justice?
Journalists and NGOs often rely on each other to inform the world. But beware vested interests. It’s best to follow the money trail to see the full picture. A sign that counter-protesters lit on fire burns after supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump held...
I joined protests against police brutality in my home country of Nigeria and saw them almost become a war, then a rude awakening for youth. Protesters in Umuahia, Nigeria, October 2020 (All photos courtesy of Eje Studios) This story was a runner-up in News...
Joy Chinaza takes us into the streets of Nigeria to join young people protesting against police brutality. Like youth elsewhere this year, she is driven by anger over rights abuses perpetrated by police charged with protecting civilians but who instead turn weapons against minorities. A shared sense of injustice motivates Chinaza and millions of others around the globe, making her story a metaphor for youthful outrage. But the personal details in the tale by the African Leadership Academy student, including the beating her own brother suffers, add poignancy that sets her account apart. Make sure students note how the first-person pronoun draws them into the story. And how her outrage — so common among youth — is tinged with ambiguity at the end.
Youth in Nigeria, angry over police brutality, have formed a movement that started with street protests and which some see as a potential political force. Youth protest against Nigeria’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in Lagos, Nigeria, 9 October 2020....
California student Lucy Jaffee interviewed renowned free-speech expert Floyd Abrams to write a forward-looking article on a landmark court case. Lucy Jaffee Lucy Jaffee was researching a complicated U.S. court case involving students’ right to freedom of speech....
A U.S. school district wants the Supreme Court to overturn a landmark free speech case and let it punish a student for criticizing her school online. Students protest for the right to free speech outside the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, 19 March 2007. (AP...
Lucy Jaffee of La Jolla Country Day School tackled a complicated topic — a court case involving a student’s freedom of speech and social media — by interviewing two experts, including the foremost authority on the U.S. First Amendment, Floyd Abrams. The lesson: If you put effort into understanding an issue, experts will be glad to speak to you. Students should contact experts because they will offer unique insights and help answer the question, “What next?”
The case Jaffee’s article focuses on lends itself to classroom discussion because it engages a matter of great interest to students. While students may instinctively side with the young woman whose Snapchat post triggered the controversy, there may be other off-campus outbursts on social media — Holocaust denial, racist language — that they might like to see sanctioned. Like so much in life, First Amendment issues often lie in the gray zone.
Millions of people around the world are stateless, with no rights and condemned to living in the shadows, on the margins of society. A Muslim Rohingya boy inside a shelter at an internally displaced person camp near the capital of Sittwe, Myanmar, 9 March 2017...
The Uighurs are not the only ethnic minority in China. Beijing’s repressive tactics reflect fears a separatist movement could threaten the state. Uighurs in Hotan, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, 6 April 2008 (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko) Last...
