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Challenge | 30-60 minutes

Being a Changemaker: Your Impact


OVERVIEW

2022_02_Impact1

How do you try to address issues you care about? Anyone who works to fix problems they see in their communities can be a changemaker! We want to hear about how you use your creativity to tackle problems that directly or indirectly affect you and your community.

What are some issues you care about, and how are you working to address them?

Here are some examples. You can also share your own ideas:

  • Social injustice
  • College tuition
  • Online misinformation
  • Lack of access to resources
    • Like the internet, libraries, access to media tools etc.
  • Underfunded programs
    • After school programs, recreational activities, etc.
  • Climate change/ the environment

And more.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT: Students will create short, vertical videos (10-30 seconds). They can film either themselves or interview fellow peers.

We aim to publish the responses on our TikTok and Instagram! DEADLINE: 2/20/22

This will be a recurring monthly challenge in which students will submit rapid response type answers to questions. The theme changes monthly for #SRLShorts.

FORMAT

We PRIMARILY are accepting videos in a VERTICAL format for social media. You can include horizontal but please film with enough space around your subject to allow for vertical cropping.

Please do not add text to your videos :)

Option 1: Record Yourself

Discuss a problem facing your community and how young people are responding.

Describe the problem and how it's affecting you and those around you. What do you think should be done, and how are you working to address the issue?

Option 2: Interview someone else

Who understands what you're going through, if not the same people going through it. You can interview fellow teens and ask them to explain how they’re addressing issues they care about.

Central Inquiry Questions:

Choose one question to answer per student.

  • What’s one issue that you’re passionate about?
  • How are you using your time and talents to help others?
  • What impact do you want to create in the world?
  • What are some ways that you are currently having an impact on issues you care about?
  • What news stories interest you? Why?
  • How are you a leader in your school and/or broader community?
  • What are some creative ways you've raised awareness about an issue you care about?

Note: Please only send it your top 5 responses per class. Also, when answering, please include the question in your response. Example: What is your favorite color? My favorite color is blue.

HOW TO SUBMIT - DEADLINE: 2/20

Journalism

Journalism is the activity of gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and information.

Source: American Press institute

Media

Media refers to all electronic or digital means and print or artistic visuals used to transmit messages.

Source: NAMLE

Community

A group of people who live in the same area (such as a city, town, or neighborhood). It can also be a group of people who have the same interests, religion, race, etc.

Source: Merriam Webster

Solutions

Investigating and explaining, in a critical and clear-eyed way, how people try to solve widely shared problems. Solutions journalism focuses on responses to problems.

Source: Solutions Journalism

Movement

A group of people with a shared purpose who work to create change together. Movements use power in numbers—be it 5 people or 5,000 people—to bring attention to important issues and create solutions for the future.

Conflict

When violence strikes or when people argue about actions, events, ideas or policies, we care. Conflict and controversy attract our attention by highlighting problems or differences within the community or between groups. Sometimes conflict can be subtle and manifest as tension.

Empathy

The term “empathy” is used to describe a wide range of experiences. A generally definition is the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. In media-making, creators can have empathy for their subjects and the audience can empathize with the characters.

Creative shots

These can include low/high angles, dollies, POVs (point-of-view), rack focus, etc.

Earth and Human Activity

Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity. (NGSS HS-ESS3-1)

Perspectives

Historical understanding requires recognizing this multiplicity of points of view in the past, which makes it important to seek out a range of sources on any historical question rather than simply use those that are easiest to find. It also requires recognizing that perspectives change over time, so that historical understanding requires developing a sense of empathy with people in the past whose perspectives might be very different from those of today. (NCSS D2.His.4.9-12 - D2.His.8.9-12)

Speaking and Listening - Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas

Topics

Journalism

Social Media

Projects

Levels

Beginner

Materials
Estimated Time

30-60 minutes