The Impact of Poverty:  scavenging Childhood Under Threat

This Week in Core
 Africa Page Earth Lights News Sources Your Report
Getting Started Researching Taking Notes Writing Citing Sources

Getting Started
Essential Question: How would my life be different if I grew up in a poverty-stricken country?
Choose or design a question to investigate.  
 When you looked at "Earthlights," what did you wonder about the places where few lights are on?  Now is your opportunity to find some answers.
  
Possible Research Questions:

  • Where are children working instead of studying? What is the connection between education and child labor?

  • In countries where children work, what conditions and effects do they experience?

  • How does poverty affect children's education?

  • How does poverty affect children's health?  (Do poor people get sick more and die younger? Why?)

  • What are some contrasts in lifestyle between wealthy and poor countries? 

  • In countries with high infant mortality, what other problems are children facing? (Why do more babies die in some countries?)

  • How can child mortality be prevented?

  • What work is being done to address malnutrition?

  • How does war affect children's lives?

  • If we compare past and present statistics, what can we conclude about a country's progress?

Researching
Source Information you might find there
Earthlights Photo of Earth at night from NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Where are the lights on?  Why?
UNICEF The United Nations Children's Fund: Facts about poverty, education, war, and health from the United Nations.
The State of the World's Children 1996: Children in War
Follow the links to statistics and maps on specific topics.
Information by country (useful once you've decided which countries are your focus)
Definitions of terms used in statistics: Make sure you know what they are talking about!
Create a customized statisical table (xls).  Enter your choices and see an easy-to-read table.
Voices of Youth: UNICEF for young readers
Why does education matter?
Try a UNICEF Quiz for kids.
Try the 2008 Quiz.
WHO The World Health Organization, the health branch of the United Nations
Worldmapper 700 world maps, where proportions are re-sized according to variables such as wealth, education, etc.
For example, click here to see infant mortality.
World Factbook Quick facts about countries, frequently updated
World Village If the World Were a Village of 100 People ... a few interesting ratios
Save the Children Creating lasting change for children in need
ILO International Labor Organization's facts about child labor laws and practice
Rugmark

 Organization working to end child labor
Rescues: Success stories about children rescued from the carpet industry
CIDA Canadian International Development Agency
Selected Sources about Children in War A 14-year old soldier: Alhaji tells about his experience.
Landmines: The danger continues for children after the battle is over.
Children and Conflict: 6-minute video from the United Nations, narrated by Ishmael Beah, former child soldier
United Nations, "Children and Armed Conflict: Children "are the least responsible for conflict, yet suffer disproportionately from its excesses."
The State of the World's Children 1996: Children in War: Report from UNICEF
No Guns Please, We Are Children: brochure from UNICEF
 Child Soldiers, reported by the International Labor Organization
Our World at War: 10 videos from the International Red Cross about children affected by war
My Baby's Name Means Suffering: Red Cross interviews refugees from war
War-Affected Children: Facts and ideas from Free the Children
The Child Soldiers: Time Magazine, November 4, 2001.  I also have a copy of a 1990 article.
"Tell the World What Is Happening to Us": Voices from the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers

Taking Notes
Noodle Tools Taking notes is an integral part of processing the raw facts and making them your own knowledge. This online tool will help you to take notes, organize them, and cite your sources without plagiarizing.  Your paraphrasing and questions will help you draft your report. You'll find some sample digital notecards in our file at Noodle Tools.

Your username is the same as tux: your graduation year and your first and last name as it appears on school registration.  With your username and password, you can access your digital note cards and bibliography from any computer, even outside of school.

I require you to use Noodle Tools, so I can monitor and comment on your note-taking progress. 
Think about your progress In addition to the paraphrasing activity on your digital note cards, the "My Ideas" portion can help you think about your progress:
  • Summarize where you are right now.
  • What would be helpful to know now?
  • How do you know that?
  • What does it have to do with your project?
  • Where are you stuck?
  • Where can you find the information you need?

Citing sources: Who says so?
Plagiarizing According to <www.plagiarism.org>, plagiarism includes:
  • copying or turning in someone else's work as your own
  • copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit to your source
  • copying exact words without using quotation marks
  • giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
  • changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
What is a citation?Where did you find your information?  How can your reader find out more?  At the end, list your sources as Works Cited.  All your parenthetical references must be included in this list.

Use the online bibliography builder at Noodle Tools. You fill in the info and they do the formatting! 

Examples:
Web Page:
"The State of the World's Children 2005." UNICEF. 2005. Web. 2 Jan. 2009.
 <http://www.unicef.org/sowc05/english/childhood.html>.
Book:
Parker, David L.  Stolen Dreams: Portraits of Working Children. New York: Lerner Publications, 1997.
Photograph:
Dreams, Angela. Water is life. N.d. Flickr, n.d. Web. 2 Feb. 2010.
<http://farm1.static.flickr.com/115/281123380_1598c90b08.jpg>.
Video:
UN. Children and Conflict in a Changing World. UN Media, 2006. Children and Armed Conflict. Web. 6 Feb. 2010. <http://www.un.org/children/conflict/english/media.html>.
Citing sources

What is a parenthetical reference?

This is a reference in parentheses ( ) at the end of a sentence, within the body of your paper. It identifies one of the sources listed in your Works Cited list. It shows your readers exactly what you got from the source, and specifically where they can find it. You need to write a parenthetical, or "in-text" reference, whether you

  • quote the words directly, 
  • paraphrase it in your own words, or even 
  • refer to an idea derived from the source <NoodleBib>.  
You'll see some examples here and on Noodle Tools.  Noodle will help you make the parenthetical reference.

Examples:

  • According to the International Labor Organization, ... (2000).
  • The UNICEF statistics show that ... ("State" 2008).
  • One former child soldier says ... (UN).
Within the text, introduce your facts with transitions such as "according to" and "show that" as you can see in the examples above.
Paraphrasing
 Essential: When you paraphrase, use your own words.
  • Use the "keepers - my words" method. 
  • Use the "CHOMP" method. 
  • Construct your own sentences. 
  • The only information that does not need to be cited is a commonly published fact such as a historical event.
  • Copying, as in "copy & paste," is plagiarism.  Don't stoop so low.
Quoting

Use direct quotes only when you want to keep particularly expressive or unique words.  If you quote phrases or sentences from a text, you must put them in quotation marks and acknowledge the source:

  • In its report, "The Invisible Children," the ILO says, "Most child laborers have no time to play" (2000).

  • How can employers get away with forcing children to work?  According to the ILO, the children are hidden by a "wall of silence" ("Invisible" 2000).

Organizing Your Research Report

PurposeInvestigate a question.  Make appropriate generalizations and conclusions based on facts.
However, your goal is to describe an issue, not to solve it.
Organizing your reportUse the helpful Notecard Tabletop on Noodle Tools to organize your outline.

  • Paragraph 1: Introduce your theme and state your thesis.

    • Example theme (topic, idea):  education.
    • Optional grabber: Every morning, Fatima looks out the kitchen window to see her brother heading for school.
    • Example thesis statement:  Children around the world do not have equal access to education.

  • Paragraphs 2, 3, and 4: These are for your three subtopics. Explain 3 generalizations based on facts.  Each paragraph must have a topic sentence,  two or more supporting facts, and commentary.

    • Example topic sentence/generalization:  In some countries, boys go to school more than girls.
    • Example supporting fact:  In Mali, 65% of boys are enrolled in primary school grades one to five.  Even fewer girls are enrolled, only 49% (UNICEF 2005).
    • Example commentary: This suggests that girls have fewer opportunities than boys.

  • Paragraph 5: Summarize your findings, draw conclusions, restate your thesis in different words, and possibly give your opinion. Note: you may not introduce any new topics or information in the conclusion.

    • Example conclusion:  Children who are most in need of education to lift them out of poverty are, unfortunately, the least likely to have the opportunity, because their country does not offer it and their parents cannot afford it. 


This page was last updated on: 
 by vhinkle