Welcome to Global News teaching activities!

Below is a summary of teaching activities designed for use with students in the classroom. The activities focus either on developing media literacy skills or on global issues and developing the skills needed to be an informed, critical and active global citizen. Each activity provides background information, resources and links.

There is also a series of short introductory activities to help students gain a clearer understanding about issues associated with the media.

All the classroom activities follow a learning process which aims to enable a student led enquiry approach.

See Addressing disasters through Global News for suggestions on how Global News classroom activities can be used to explore disaster situations.

Some activities may take more than one session to complete, especially if introductory activities or agreeing and debating issues are used in conjunction with the main activity.

The activities are ordered progressively. However, it is not essential to carry out the activities in the suggested order. Certain activities may lead on to other ideas not provided here. Please contact us if you have ideas for additional activities, particularly those successfully tried out with students.

The main classroom activities listed below can be downloaded in PDF format.

Activities focusing on media literacy

Activity: What's in the news?

Summary
Students examine and compare the lead stories from selected global news sites, choosing three stories they think are the most important for an imaginary home page of their own global news site. They also consider the reasons why they have selected these stories which can lead to an exploration of news values. Full details...

Activity: Every picture tells not the whole story

Summary
Photographs can reveal a mass of information about the wider world and provide an excellent stimulus for enquiry-based learning. In this activity students select news related photographs from the many that are now widely available through the internet. They personally reflect on these images and critically question and challenge the photographic portrayal of people, places, situations and issues. Full details...

Activity: Bias Detectives

Summary
Students critically explore a particular news report to gain an understanding of the various ways in which writers and editors, intentionally or unintentionally, introduce bias into news reporting. Full details...

Activities focusing on global issues and global citizenship

Activity: BBC World - Have Your Say

Summary
Students participate in an on-line debate on a global issue on the BBC World News site. They research and learn about the opinions of others and consider their own opinions on the issue, submitting these to the BBC World News site. Full details...

Activity: Researching a country

Summary
Students select a country in the developing world that has featured heavily in recent news. They explore the reasons why the country has been in the news and research to find out some important new facts and information about the country; information that provides social, environmental, economic or political contexts to the news. Full details...

Activity: Tsunami - what next?

Summary
This activity revisits the tsunami disaster some months after it occurred. However, the process used to explore this could be applied to any disaster and the activity modified to examine, for example, Hurricane Katrina, famine in Niger or other current and topical disasters. The activity provides an opportunity to look at the countries affected by a disaster and to explore the wider context: why is it that the poor are so badly affected by disasters and what can students, individually or collectively do in the longer term to help address global poverty? Full details...

See also Addressing disasters through Global News activities for suggestions on how the other Global News classroom activities can be used to explore disaster situations.

Activity: Causes-effects-solutions

Activity summary
Using information from selected global news sites students consider the causes and effects of a major international news story. They consider whether this information constitutes fact or opinion. They also use the information provided by news services to explore the potential solutions to the issue and who might or should be involved in implementing these solutions; as part of this they consider how they or their school community might be part of the solution. Full details...

Activity: The compass rose

Summary
Using information from selected global news sites on a particular topical global issue students explore the interrelationship between environmental, economic, social and political factors in examining causes and effects. They use a framework of enquiry, based on the 'compass rose', to help them appreciate the complexities of global issues and develop a more in-depth understanding of a particular global issue. Full details...