Want to be a member of HRE USA? JOIN TODAY

A network dedicated to building a culture of human rights

Lesson Plans – Education

Brown vs. Board of Education and School Desegregation Teaching Resources
K-elementary             Middle school                  High school
Source: National Education Association
Teaching materials to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education.
Grade Level: K – high school
Subject Area:  social studies, US History, language arts

Education
Source: UNICEF
UNICEF Kid Power takes students on a journey where their everyday activity is connected to real-world impact.
Grade Level: K – high school
Subject Area: social studies

Equal Rights: What gets in the way?
Source: WomanKind

By the end of this lesson students will have considered some of the specific challenges to women’s rights, why they exist and what can be done to effect change. They will listen to different opinions, discuss and collaborate.
Grade Level: middle school – high school
Subject Area: social studies, geography

HRE Curriculum Integration Guide
Source: HRE USA
This guides provides model lessons to help social studies and other educators implement human rights in their curriculum. Each lesson is tied to Common Core curriculum standards and contains suggested modifications for ESL populations and classified students, as well as suggestions regarding how each lesson supports literacy development.
Grade Level: elementary – high school
Subject Area: general

Human Rights and Service Learning
Source: Amnesty International USA
An introduction to human rights service learning with a lesson on children’s right to education and health.
Grade Level: middle – high school
Subject Area: social studies, serviced learning

Mind the Gap: Gender & Education
Source: UNESCO
A curriculum with a series of activities and lessons to introduce the concept of gender and the right to education. Includes use of online data exploration tool to “compare access to education for children, adolescents, students and adults living in different countries of the world.” Data exploration tool is a good way to integrate HRE with statistics and math.
Grade Level: upper elementary – high school
Subject Area: social studies, math, current events

Rights to Education Toolkit
Source: Advocates for Human Rights
A lesson plan and supplemental materials on the right to education in the United States.
Grade Level: middle school – adult
Subject Area: social studies, science, current events

Service Learning for Human Rights Education
Source: HRE USA
This guide is intended to provide educators with a loose blueprint to follow in adapting service learning experiences to human rights education. The following service learning experiences can be adapted as extensions of any lessons in human rights education that are provided on this website or beyond, as a stand-alone unit plan for classroom-based civics education, as an extra- or co-curricular experiences for students involved in human rights education activities within or beyond the walls of school environments, or for any other purpose an educator concerned about human rights may develop.
Grade Level: elementary – high school
Subject Area: general

Youth and Education in Afghanistan
Source: Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Investigates the daily struggle faced by many Afghan students seeking an education, and the danger faced by teachers and schools working to provide these children with an experience many Americans take for granted. Examines the impact on society when the right to education is denied.
Grade Level: Middle – high school
Subject Area: social studies, geography, current events

We are grateful for the generous support of our members, individual donors, and The Puffin Foundation Ltd
The core values of HRE USA and its partner organizations include transparency and critical thinking skills. We believe that human rights--and human rights education--belong to everyone, and that the full realization of human rights means that access to human rights education materials must never be conditioned upon the subscription to any particular religious faith, ideology, political affiliation, or membership in any particular organization and that any organizational connections should be openly acknowledged.