The Second Social Justice Based Mathematics Unit: The Iraq War

Photo 1: Map of the Middle East used in lesson during Iraq War unit



Photo 2: Me teaching during Iraq War unit

After completing the unit on immigration, which I promise to talk about more in a later post, I asked my students to brainstorm ideas for our next social justice based mathematics unit. First we talked about what social justice meant and then we did a brainstorm. After coming up with a list of viable ideas students did a blind vote to choose their focus area. They chose the War in Iraq.

My thoughts were that this was a huge topic but that I could guide them in any direction I wanted and that information was likely to be readily available. Once I knew the topic I started designing their group project. I set it up much like the first project on immigration and they had the same group roles that I shared in my last post. I made some changes to the structure for completion of the project. I laid out more specifics on what each student had to do to get their final project grade. I also considered the California state standards that I needed to cover before the end of the year and made plans for lessons to support the standards.

The final project that I asked students to complete in their small groups was as follows:

Overview of Project

1. Each group will conduct research and use mathematics to determine the costs of the War in Iraq, from both a monetary and a human perspective. Students will use mathematics (graphs, tables, ratios, percentages, etc.) to calculate and display the costs of war (both monetary and human). Groups should look at the costs from both the perspective of the Unites States and Iraq.
   
2. The groups will research, discuss, calculate and display the costs of the War in Iraq in comparison to other governmental costs (schools, healthcare, social security, etc.).
   
3. The groups must create their own budget for the United States. They should both show their budget in a visual display and explain why they believe their choices for allocating the taxpayers money is of high quality and should be adopted.
   

Final Project

The final project must include writing, art, and math. It can be done in the form of a PowerPoint, PhotoStory, Movie, or with a poster board and oral presentation. It can also be a combination of all of the above options. Please be creative in how you present the information you collect and prepare. If you have another idea for how to present your group's work let me know and we can discuss it as an option. There must be an oral or interactive component in the presentation. The presentation must address all three areas of focus and be of high quality.

Grades

Grades will depend upon both the group's final presentation and each student's individual work in their math notebook. Each student will receive two grades: one for their individual contributions and the other for the group's final project.

The students were very excited about this project because it was a topic of their choice. They really wanted to know about the War in Iraq. I worked very hard throughout this unit, as I had in the last, to include multiple perspectives. This was particularly important because I quickly determined that most or all of my students were against the war in Iraq. I made it my mission to bring in other perspectives during the unit. It wasn't hard. In fact, I'd say it was very fun! I'll share more about this later.