Middle

A quick 3 page activity sheets that students can use to become further acquainted with the country of Panama and the Panama Canal Zone, which is a vital port for U.S. ships and other countries worldwide.

In this lesson, students will learn about the problem of illiteracy in order to better understand the situation in Nicaragua and the rest of Central America. Students will also begin to form a new perspective of their own education and how most of the U.S. population is literate.

In this lesson, students will read a poem and be introduced to the human, individual side of the struggle in Central America. They will focus on understanding people in terms of humans rather than just statistics.

In this activity, students will begin to develop a physical skill that is vital to soccer, the world's most popular game and especially popular in Latin America. They will become aware of how certain aspects of physical fitness and sports coordination respond to cultural factors.

In this lesson, students will analyze three different viewpoints of the same story and will organize the information provided in the three views. Students will develop an understanding of how history over time become blurred by stories.

In this lesson, students will compare and contrast the purpose of the organizations Humane Borders and Minutemen using a graphic organizer. After students brainstorm, they will gather their information and create a persuasive essay on the main goals of whatever organization they choose to write about.

In this lesson, students will learn why Mexicans emigrate to the United States and will be able to describe the factors involved in this decision.

In this lesson students will locate the southern border, listen to a story about crossing the border, discuss the journey brainstorming push/pull factors that might motivate a person to make such a journey, read recent newspaper articles and synthesize what they have learned in a journal entry. This lesson lasts about 2-3 class periods. Email our Outreach Coordinator Clea Conlin at cconlin@email.arizona.edu for the materials.

In this lesson, students will examine and analyze a wide variety of these cultural mosaics in order to understand foreign" perceptions of conflict and cooperation that will ultimately impact our future international relations and global landscape. Students will participate in a week long simulation of the borderlands and will experience an unequal distribution of classroom resources. They will keep a journal to answer daily reflection questions to help them construe an idea of what the borderlands are like.

This lesson plan is designed for use with the film "Al Otro Lado". This 60 minute film provides a window into issues along the border between the United States and Mexico. A young Mexican man named Magdiel faces an economic crisis in his fishing town. He is unable to make it as a fisherman, so he considers whether to immigrate to the U.S. illegally or to traffic drugs like many of his friends.