Lesson Plans

Literacy

Enhance Literacy, Comprehension & Civic Action

Literacy for Democracy

Build Inquiry, Critical Research and Analysis

Asking Research Questions

Standards-Based Testing

Connect with Local Offices and the Internet

Community Health and Content Standards

Explore Your Community

Social Capital

Service Learning and Civics

Assessing for Learning

Community Health and Content Standards

School Violence and Local Government

Critical Social and Civic Capital

Social Capital

Assessing for Learning

Practice Thinking and Writing Skills

Improving Student Work

KAT Talk, Fall 1998
Centerfold Lesson:
Student Improvement

Community Health and Content Standards Through KAT

How healthy is your community? There are lots of different ways to answer this question, and they all depend on how you decide to measure to health.

1. Brainstorm with your classmates different ways to define "a healthy" community. (For example: How many automobile accidents are reported that result in injury? How many student absences occur in your school each year? How many cases of typhoid are there?)

2. Look at the list your class developed above. Decide if the ideas you came up with fit into more general categories, such as "sports injuries," "infectious illnesses," or car accidents."

3. Select one category of community health and research it. Find out why the issue is, or is not, a big problem in your community. Find out what preventive actions help or might help.

4. Prepare a presentation in which you discuss the background of the health issue you
studied. Include methods for improving health in your community on this issue.

How safe is your community? There are lots of ways to think about this question. One way is to examine police records. Below is a graph of the incidents listed on police logs in one community for a month. Study the graph and then respond to the questions below.

1. Sometimes we need to ask questions about data before we can understand it or make conclusions about it. What questions do you have about this graph?
(Hint: Do you understand how a "theft " is different from a "robbery " or "burglary "? Is it important to know how many people live in the community from which the data comes?)

2. Based on this graph, how would you describe the safety of that community?

3. Based on this graph, what would you begin to study if you wanted to improve the safety of that community?

4. Invite someone from your police department to speak to your class about safety issues in your community. Get data about your community to study.

More Lesson Plans

Home| About KAT | The KAT Model | Order Materials | Lesson Plans

Join the Discussion | Resource Exchange | Your Projects | Suggestions

Copyright © 1996-1999 - League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania Citizen Education Fund