Political, Economic, and Social

Issues
Prisons, Racial Profiling, the death penalty
Poverty, minimum v. living wage,
sweatshops
Housing, gentrification, homeownership
War, defense budgets, military recruiting
Public health, asthma, AIDS
High stakes testing, class size
Environmental racism, pollution, resource
availability

Financial Education
Credit cards, managing debt, paying
for college
Saving/budgeting money, opening
bank accounts
High-cost loans
Filing taxes

Student Centered Topics

Take up topics that come directly
from your students.
What are they worried about in their
own community? Lives?

The Specifics
1. Start with a strong mathematics
framework.
*Always fit the issues to the math.
2. Talk to your students to decide on
the issue to focus on.

3. Create Essential Questions

(Large open-ended questions without a
specific answer.)
E.g. Which neighborhoods in our city
have the highest teenage incarceration
rates, and what are the similarities and
differences in economic status and
demographics of these communities?

4. Introduce the Social Justice issue.

*Use guest lecturers, video clips, news
articles, etc.
5. Introduce the math.
6. Social justice does not need to be
the focus of every lesson. You may
teach several specific math lessons
including worksheets and activities
that are math focused.

7. Scaffold the math concepts and the

social justice issue.
8. End with a large social justice
themed project.