Tragedy of the Commons

The Tragedy of the Commons in an economic theory that explains how a minority of people can take a common good, such as shared resources, and take more than what is good for everyone. 

We will be looking at this concept and relate it to our classroom and school resources. What are our common resources? How could these resources be abused by us? How can we keep that abuse from happening? 

Tragedy of the Commons Wikipedia

Tragedy of the Commons Khan Academy

Kiva in the Classroom

A few years ago I created a Kiva group for my students to make micro loans. We ended up loaning out $100 that year. Today we are going to start lending again.

The students will be using the website Dollar Street to examine the homes and lives of disparate people living all around the world. From that information we will choose a country to target for our micro loan. We will then go to Kiva and look for someone we want to invest in and we will make the loan.

Kiva site
Dollar Street

Me Toloui
Mary Grace
Rahaf

The Foot Soldier of Brimingham

In this lesson we are using the podcast The Foot Soldier by Malcolm Gladwell to discuss inherent bias.  Can the art we create be used to influence belief systems? As we examine the story as well as look at the statue and the picture from which the statue comes, what can we learn about ourselves and how we react based upon what we believe now?

Podcast

Transcript of the podcast.