Kids around the World

I was poking around for world news that would be readable and of interest to middle-schoolers, and information about current issues and events. I came across a few interesting items.

The United Nations has a site called Cyberschoolbus. It includes curriculum unites on cities, human rights, health, environmental issues, poverty, women's rights, and more. The Country at a Glance section provides tabs for UN member nations with basic info, news sources, economy, environment, health, technology. There is also content relating to a number of UN projects of interest to students.

One of the UN projects is a game called Food Force that is designed to educate kids about world hunger issues. I haven't tried it yet, but I think I need to find a gamer to check it out and give me a review. It looks pretty slick, but what do I know?

Last year I saw an amazing show on PBS, an episode of Wide Angle called Back to School. It shows the progress in schooling, or lack of it, made by several kids around the world. What some of these kids go through to get even the most basic education is humbling. I wish every kid here could see this program. It was incredibly moving. Wide Angle provides a Global Classroom section in their website with many lesson plans. They are mostly for high school students, but some can work for middle school as well.

One of the better world news sources for kids, but skewing a little younger, maybe 4th-6th grade is BBC's News for kids. The link here is to Factmonster's aggregation of it, but I will find the direct link and pop it in here.