Last fall 7th and 8th graders from Copper Beech Middle School in Yorktown Heights visited theScience Barge in Yonkers.
Despite a dreary day, we enjoyed spending time on the River. It was the first time on the water for many students.
My consumer science class was particularly interested in the concept of urban gardening, while Ed Becker’s technology class was eager to see alternative energy in action. During the course of the visit we learned about these topics and much more.
Students got a lesson on the earth’s potable water and arable land, toured the barge, and fabricated simple solar cookers. We also took a close look at solar panels and the barge’s unique cardboard cooling system.
We sampled herbs and vegetables grown in the barge’s hydro and aquaponics systems and got to see worms at work composting vegetable scraps.
Mr. Becker’s students have used what they learned on board the barge to create their own hydroponics system in class and have started seedlings for our school garden.
For my class the on-board activities were a perfect segue from talking about our watershed to a unit on local food and sustainability.
Teachers and students:
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us your "Trip Tales" -- stories, poems, drawings, and more -- about places in the Hudson Valley.
Top photo: courtesy of the Science Barge. Bottom from Copper Beech Middle School.
Last week we published an essay by our elementary school winner, Aayushi Jah from Main Street School in Irvington.
This week we're pleased to bring you the secondary student winners.
Emilie Hostetter and Nicole Yang are both from Tabernacle Christian Academy in Poughkeepsie. Their teacher is Janine Guadagno.
Bonticou Crag, Mohonk Preserve, courtesy of JosephA's Flickr stream.
LOOKING TOPSIDE DOWN
Nicole Yang, Grade 12
Climbing up Bonticou Crag,
I split open the wilderness,
Stepping on rocks, I gaze topside down on the mighty Hudson.
In the dusk, I count the tiny houses dotting the scene,
Looking like marvelous stars in a meadow sky,
As I hang over the cliff, I kiss the air lofting off the river
Trees blush red and orange in the sunset.
From a God’s eye view,
I watch the Hudson River flow.
It flows as a cord of living things,
It flows as beating, pulsating heart,
It flows as a mother of the Hudson Valley,
Nourishing everything and everyone.
Aayushi is the elementary school winner of our student writing contest. Entries were read for ideas and voice as well as fluency, grammar, and spelling. Many thanks to the six teachers and site staff who took on the tough -- but exciting -- task of rating the essays and poems received. Next week we will publish the middle and high school winners and throughout the winter and spring we'll post more of the wonderful entries we received. We'll announce a new contest at the end of the summer.
Mrs. Wallace’s and Mrs. Slafani’s class were at Yonkers Pier. We were supposed to sail the Clearwater, but we couldn’t because the wind was striking as fast as lightning. “Switch!” yelled Jocelyn. My group, King of the Seas, was at the geology station. It was just about time to switch stations.
Our next station was Tug of War, and our leader at the station was Chelsea. The station was based on pulleys.
“Alright everybody, who is feeling strong today?” she asked. Max and I raised our hands. “You two get on this side of the rope.
"Now you four get on the other side of the rope,” said Chelsea. “Four verses two, they are surely to win,” I thought.
The United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) December 10, 1948, making this Saturday Human Rights Day. Though not every country immediately ratified all 30 articles – and some, including the United States, still have not signed on to the entiredocument – most human rights activists agree the UDHR is a valuable tool in securing basic rights.
The Hudson Valley has a special relationship to human rights because Eleanor Roosevelt spent much of her life promoting them and served as chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, which drafted the UDHR.
Her home, Val-Kill, is open to the public and many of her papers, as well as radio and TV appearances, are collected at the FDR Presidential Library. Both are in Hyde Park, Dutchess County. For details on human rights-related programming available through the National Park Service and the Library see The Eleanor Connection below.
Our
region is also home to the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center
in Purchase, Westchester County and the Holocaust Museum and Study Center in
Spring Valley, Rockland County. Both have programming for students and
teachers. Links and locations are on THV’s destination tab.
This is a much longer THV blog post than usual. If you'd like to jump to topics of particular interest here are links to subsections for
teaching about . . .
There
are many resources to help integrate a discussion of human rights into
classrooms and youth groups this week, next week, or anytime it suits your curriculum.
YES! Magazine’s abridged poster-version of the UDHR is an easy way to familiarize students with the document. Download it here and print as many as you need at a size that works for you up to 11x17. I especially like it because it adds a line about our country’s record on each article.
Facing History and Ourselveshas several free activities and lesson plans such as Hope,
Critique, and Possibility: Universal Rights in Societies of Difference.
If you or your students want to dig a little deeper a short history of human rights by Nancy Flowers, a co-founder of Human Rights USA, is available from the University of Minnesota’s Human Rights Resource Center
Many teachers say that students’ affinity for
Eleanor Roosevelt makes it easy to introduce human rights through her.
Here are a few of the many materials available to help you do so.
Where do Human Rights Begin is a program for secondary students – or teachers – offered at Val-Kill by educator Susanne Norris.
Susanne is also the author of Eleanor Roosevelt: An American Hero a curriculum unit pitched at the fourth grade level. It engages students in exploring primary documents, reading and analyzing literature, and gives teachers options for visiting Hyde Park.
Fundamental Freedoms: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a five-part book produced by Facing History and Ourselves. It includes 20 primary source documents as well as photographs, maps, and political cartoons from the period. Questions for each item stimulate classroom curiosity. Download free or purchase for $15.95 plus shipping
"The Importance of Being Eleanor," an issue of Cobblestone, the history magazine geared to ages 9-14. Full of photos and written in an engaging style, single copies are $6.95 and the teachers’ guide can be downloaded free. Get a link and read a review by the National Park Service’s Fran Macsali-Urbin.
Online Publicity for Issues that Matteris an activity/lesson developed by Newburgh high school teacher Barbara Goodman. Adaptable for grades 5-12, students choose an article from the UDHR that is important to them, discuss and practice effective communication strategies, and then design web pages about the issue.
"Eleanor Roosevelt: First Lady of the World" (grades 4-6), "Directed Student Research in Primary Source Documents" (7-12), and "Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Issues Forum" (10-12) are among the human rights-related programs offered by The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.
Of course, visiting Val-Kill and/or the FDR Library is a great way to begin or end a study of human rights, and the National Park Service and National Archives, which manages the Library, have a program to help cover transportation costs, Bus On Us.
Article 25, Food
This article, with language including, “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for...health and well-being…including food, clothing, housing and medical care….” is among the easiest for students to understand.
If you decide to start the conversation with food, you can talk about a wide range of issues including access and what students think constitutes an adequate diet. Farms and Food: A Teaching the Hudson Valley Resource Guide is free and full of materials that can help students explore these topics.
Youth For Human Rights International has produced a free packet of materials for educators including a glossary, teachers guide, film, and more. They also have a 30-60 second video for each UDHR article. Here’s a link to the one on Food & Shelter.
Yes! Magazine has activities and lesson plans related to the growing, harvesting, and trade of bananas, chocolate, and coffee
And, if you want to build on this theme with a farm visit, remember THV Explore Awards. Article 23, Workers’ rights (Photo at right courtesy of Barbara J. Miner.)
With the Occupy Movement drawing attention to inequality and unions facing attacks this article should provide fertile ground for human rights’ discussions especially with older students.
Article 23 includes the following key phrases: “equal pay for equal work,” “just and favourable remuneration ensuring...an existence worthy of human dignity,” and “the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection....”
The award-winning Rethinking Schools has some suggestions for teaching about labor issues including picture books, discussion questions, videos, articles, and more.
Teaching Tolerance offers Labor Matters – printable middle school activities and lessons complete with handouts – and a free kit, Viva La Causa, which focuses on the grape strikes and boycotts of the 1960s and ‘70s. It includes a 39-minute DVD and teacher's guide with standards-based lesson plans for secondary students.
As mentioned, Youth for Human Rights International has produced a 30-60 second video for each UDHR article. This one on workers’ rights is among the most effective. Article 26, Education
If like me, you think we don’t talk with students enough about the meaning and purpose of education, this article is a great way to get started. Key provisions of the article include, “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free…. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.” F is for Fair!designed for grades 3-5 and Education Evaluationfor grades 6-12 guide students through their human right to education and help them evaluate how well the world is doing when it comes to providing a free, equal, quality education to all. Free from Teaching Tolerance.
Get Youth For Human Rights International’s short video on education, part of the series mentioned above.
Human Rights and Educating Global Citizens, from Facing History and Ourselves, addresses another aspect of this article, “Education….shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.”
