Making Connections
A Fair Trade Unit Plan
Grades 9–12
Contents
Resource Overview 3
Who's it for? 4
Resources 4
Why fair trade? 5
Why schools? 5
Why Fairtrade certification? 5
Conceptual Lesson Structure 6
Lessons Overview 7
Lesson 1: Introduction to Global Human Rights Issues 8
Lesson 2: Social Issues — Vulnerability and Resilience 12
Lesson 3: Where does our food come from? 19
Lesson 4: Supply chain issues 21
Lesson 5: Introduction to Fair Trade (Minimum price + Labour issues) 28
Lesson 6: Project Research 32
Lesson 7: Co-operatives and Fairtrade Premiums 33
Lesson 8: Children’s rights 39
Lesson 10: Environment 47
Lesson 11: Fair Trade Advocacy in Canada 50
Lesson 12: Unit completion 51
Overview
Making Connections is designed for students and classrooms learning about global sustainability as it relates to community development, geography, international trade, business development and marketing.
Making Connections was developed as part of the Fair Trade Schools Program for students and teachers. The Program recognizes schools demonstrating strong commitment to fair trade among its administration, teachers, and students. It has a long-term vision for awareness and support of fair trade—and aims to provide resources to suit a range of educational goals.
Fair Trade School Program
Fair Trade Schools is a Program of Fairtrade Canada, managed in partnership with the Canadian Fair Trade Network (CFTN) and the Association québécoise du commerce équitable (AQCÉ). To learn more about the Fair Trade Schools Program, visit:
Fairtrade Canada: http://fairtrade.ca/en-ca/get-involved/in-your-community/fair-trade-schools
CFTN: http://cftn.ca/fair-trade-school-program
AQCÉ at
Fairtrade Canada is a national, nonprofit fair trade certification organization and the only Canadian member of Fairtrade International. In collaboration with its sister organizations around the world, it manages the internationally renowned and respected Fairtrade system. fairtrade.ca
The CFTN is a non-profit organization that works with civil society and industry stakeholders to advance awareness and support for fair trade in Canada. It supports collaboration and best practices within the fair trade movement to increase Canadian commitments to international social responsibility. cftn.ca
The AQCÉ is a non-profit organization with the goal to support its members that implement the fair trade values and principals in the province of Québec. assoquebecequitable.org
Acknowledgements
The Fair Trade School Program would not be possible without the support of community partners across Canada.
Who's it for?
Making Connections is designed to fit curriculum requirements for grade 9–12 classrooms. Lesson topics include social studies, geography, community development, economics, business development, and marketing.
Through topics ranging from everyday products to international trade, classrooms will explore issues of poverty and human vulnerability in developing communities around the world. With the aid of teacher instruction and modeling, students will conduct their own independent research and evaluation of fair trade while exploring a human rights issue of their choosing.
Resources
Making Connections includes fully developed lesson plans, ideal for new teachers building their own repertoire of resources. All unit resources are made available in Microsoft Office documents (Word and PowerPoint), making it easy for more experienced teachers to customize, adapt, and integrate into existing units or other learning programs.
Included in the unit plan:
· Detailed lesson plans
· PowerPoint presentations with embedded video links (resources require audio/visual hardware and internet connection)
· Learner-focused classroom activities
· Printable handouts
· Links to further learning
· Additional learning activities
· Making Connections Research Project and supplementary resources
Making Connections Research Project
The unit-long research project features three culminating activities that emphasize independent research, reporting, and evaluation. Instructors will guide students through case study examples, providing students with the tools to conduct their own studies. Additional resources are available for classrooms requiring adaptation for assisted learning and evaluation.
Why fair trade?
Farmers and workers in developing countries who grow or make many of the products we buy are often in the weakest position to ensure their earnings are enough to meet their needs. When the prices or wages they receive aren’t enough, they are forced to make sacrifices that trap them and their communities in a cycle of poverty. This can happen even when the prices we pay are high, and it translates into insecure livelihoods, environmental degradation, and insufficient access to basic health and social services. In extreme cases it can lead to child labour, human trafficking, and other human rights abuses.
Fair trade seeks to address this by making the principles of fairness and decency mean something in the marketplace, largely by providing valuable information that helps us to make purchasing decisions that match our values. Buying Fairtrade certified products helps to ensure some of the most disadvantaged producers in the world have access to global markets, creating the means for long-term investment in environmental and labour standards and community development.
Why schools?
Our education system offers the most comprehensive approach to educating the next generation of international thought leaders. It’s important the students of today learn how to effectively participate in our global community, as they’ll be the ones to shape the future of our world.
We’re connected to people and cultures through the products we buy. Understanding the origins of everyday products builds a richer understanding of the world we live in. For students and teachers, fair trade provides a valuable framework for exploring sustainability issues that affect us all.
Why Fairtrade certification?
With so many claims to fairness and sustainability in the marketplace, third-party verification is an invaluable tool to ensure purchases actually do connect with these values.
The FAIRTRADE Mark represents the best known and most respected ethical certification system for social sustainability issues. It provides an easy and reliable way to know that products have met credible standards that are set and monitored following best practices, public input, and regular audits.
The Fairtrade system is also the only one in the world that is 50% owned by the very farmers and workers meant to benefit from it. This provides an additional level of assurance that the system will continue to have the positive impact it was designed to have.
Conceptual Lesson Structure
Lessons Overview
· Introduction/ Assess current knowledge (20min)
· Presentation/Unit-introduction (20min)
· Country profile project introduction (15min)
· Assign food Journal (10min)
Lesson 2: Social Issues -- Vulnerability and Resilience
· Needs vs. wants: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (30min)
· Presentation: key terms (20min)
· Assign newspaper reading/food journal reminder (5min)
· Student work time (remainder)
Lesson 3: Where does our food come from?
· Case study: Newspaper study (40min)
· Project assignment #1: Media Studies (10min)
· Teacher Modeling (10min)
Lesson 4: Supply Chain Issues
· Review concepts (5min)
· Supermarket supply chains (20min)
· Bananas: Who gets what activity (45min)
Lesson 5: Introduction to Fair Trade (Minimum Price and Labour Issues)
· Fair vs. unfair discussion (10min)
· Intro to fair trade presentation (30min)
· Mini-assignment #2 (10min) / Lesson 6: Project Research
· Independent student research
Lesson 7: Co-operatives and Fairtrade Premiums
· Review (10min)
· (Optional) What is a business? (25min)
· Presentation: What is a co-operative? (20min)
· Co-operative Class Role Play (30min)
Lesson 8: Children’s rights
· Film: The Dark Side of Chocolate (70min)
Lesson 9: Women in Agriculture
· Women in Agriculture Presentation (40min)
· Article assignment
Lesson 10: Environment
· Banana case study (25min)
Lesson 11: Fair Trade Advocacy in Canada
· Presentation (25min)
Lesson 12: Project hand-in and Unit wrap
· Students submit final projects
Lesson 1: Introduction to Global Human Rights Issues
Lesson Objective:
· Students will be able to discuss human rights issues within the context of “vulnerability” and “resiliency” (based on the UN’s Human Development Report 2014: http://hdr.undp.org/en/2014-report)
Lesson:
Introduction/ Assess current knowledge / 20 mins / In groups have students brainstorm possible answers to one or more of the following questions (10 mins):· What does poverty mean to you?
· What does it look like?
· Where does it exist?
· Why does it exist?
· How do we measure it?
Have students write their answers and call upon groups to share their responses. (5-10 mins)
Presentation/Unit-introduction / 20 mins / According the United Nations' 2015 Human Development Report:
"Those living in extreme poverty and deprivation are among the most vulnerable. More than 2.2 billion people are either near or living in multidimensional poverty. About 842 million suffer from chronic hunger.
According to income-based measures of poverty, 1.2 billion people live with $1.25 or less a day. However, the latest estimates of the UNDP Multidimensional Poverty Index reveal that almost 1.5 billion people in 91 developing countries are living in poverty with overlapping deprivations in health, education and living standards. And although poverty is declining overall, almost 800 million people are at risk of falling back into poverty if setbacks occur."
What does this mean?
Key terms:
Human development: Enlarging people's critical choices and their ability to be educated, be healthy, have a reasonable standard of living and feel safe—and ensuring security of these elements. Removing barriers that hold people back in their freedom to act. Enabling the disadvantaged and excluded to realize their rights, to express their concerns openly, to be heard and to become active agents in shaping their destiny. Having the freedom to live a life that one values and to manage one's affairs adequately.
Threats to human development include: economic shock, rights violations, natural disasters, disease, conflict, and environmental hazards.
Systemic vulnerability: A complex whole of connected parts functioning together toward increasing the vulnerability of individuals or their communities.
Poverty: the state of being poor or wanting of the necessities of life, including access to health (child mortality, nutrition), education (years of school, children enrolled), and minimum standards of living (cooking fuel, toilet, water, electricity, floor, assets).
Causes of poverty
· lack of jobs
· inability to work—illness, family obligations
· poor working conditions
Symptoms of poverty can include:
· In the home:
- selling assets (things we want or need)
- children not going to school
- postponing or neglecting necessary medical care
· In the community: increase in crime, suicide, violence, drug abuse, and migration.
Key necessities to reducing poverty:
· access to social services, including education, health care, water supply and sanitation, and public safety.
· social protection: unemployment insurance, pension programs, labour standards
Country profile project introduction / 15 min / Students will select a country to research, report on, and present to the class. Students will aim to build an understanding of a developing country and the challenges it faces. Students will also evaluate the potential impact that fair trade could have in addressing the challenges the country faces.
Components include
· media studies on their country of choice
· profile information
· image collection
· final report
· presentation
Provide students with a selection and overview of 4-6 different countries to profile. For an adapted version of the project, students may use the example profile presented by the teacher. Advanced students may incorporate a review of the UN's 2015 Human Development Report to synthesize and evaluate their research.
DUE END OF UNIT
STUDENTS TO SELECT COUNTRY/PRODUCT BY CLASS 3
ASSIGNMENT: Food Journal —Understanding where our food comes from / 10 min
+Class work time / Goals: Students understand the range of international sources for food. Students understand the interdependent nature of our food systems.
In class: have students write down all of the foods they have eaten in the last 3-5 days. For foods that contain multiple ingredients, have them try to write each individual food product (excluding additives).
At home: have students write down all of the foods they consume up until next class. Include individual food products for foods that contain multiple items (excluding additives). Begin thinking about where each food comes from (for discussion in next class).
DUE CLASS 3
FOOD JOURNAL TEMPLATE
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Other
Date
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Other
Lesson 2: Social Issues—Vulnerability and Resilience
Lesson Objectives:
· Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of needs versus wants with respect to greater issues of poverty.
· Students will be able to prioritize needs and wants.
Lesson:
Needs vs. wants: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs / 30 min / Define for students the difference between a need and a want.Need: Something you can’t live without.
Want: Something you would like to have but that is not entirely necessary for survival.
Individually or in pairs, have students write a list of needs and wants. Each student completes their own list. Have students compare their lists with others and add to their own lists. How do their lists differ between them? Are there certain things that you need that others only want? (10 min)
Distribute the “Needs versus Wants” handout (blank diagram). Have students assign their list of needs and wants to the diagram. Students will need to come up with their own categories to prioritize different needs versus wants. (15 min). Additionally:
· Ensure students think beyond “items/things”. Offer suggestions like “family,” “knowledge,” “respect,” “happiness.” Do we need to be happy to survive? What happens when we don’t have happiness in our lives?
· Ensure students consider the long-term nature of their evaluation (consider what you need versus want for the next 10, 20, 30+ years).
Ask students to consider their previous discussion on poverty: Are there different degrees/levels of poverty? What is the bare minimum that everyone should have access to? (Have students refer to their categories they came up with)
Presentation: Introduction to key terms / 20 min / Key terms:
Right: What one is legally, morally, and/or politically entitled to possess. Something that everyone should have.
Privilege: a special benefit or advantage available only to a particular person or group of people
Social Issue: A problem that affects many people and cannot be solved by an individual. It may threaten people’s rights or provide certain people with excess privilege.
Human vulnerability: exposure to risk of eroding people's capabilities and choices. Risks in future deterioration in individual, community, and national circumstances and achievements.
Human resilience: ensuring people's choices are robust, now and in the future, and enabling people to cope and adjust to adverse events.
What factors make people more vulnerable? What factors make them more resilient?
Present Maslow’s Hierarchy (Official version). Have students compare their own. What makes people most vulnerable? What makes people most resilient?
· Note that Maslow developed this model in 1943 (before iPhones, the Internet, computers. In fact, the world was in the midst of total war (World War II).
· Abraham Maslow was an American who studied only exemplary people — studying only the healthiest 1% of college populations.
· Compare student categories to Maslow’s. Key Point: It’s okay/good if student categories differ from Maslow’s.
Unit project connections: Ensure students understand that these terms should be used in their unit project.
Assign Newspaper clip reading / 5 min / Students to read “'Coffee rust' threatens to worsen poverty, raise prices” and answer the following:
[Teachers may want to find current, up-to-date samples]
· What social issues are identified in the news article?
· Who are the most vulnerable to these social issues? (Who is affected the most?) Why are they the most vulnerable?
· What are the solutions suggested in the article? Do you think these solutions will increase the resiliency of the people affected?
DUE NEXT CLASS
Reminders / Remind students their food journal is due next class. As students complete this assignment, they should be thinking about what product and country they will research for their unit project.
Class work time