This week's LIO is all about UN SDG #5: Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls globally. Gender equality is more than just a fundamental human right. It is a foundation that is necessary to achieve a prosperous, peaceful, and sustainable world. Unfortunately, many girls around the world continue to face disadvantages when it comes to education, finding work, healthcare, and many other essential aspects of life. Advancing gender equality and the rights of women and girls is critical to all areas of a healthy and developed society.

The activities below introduce students to many of the concepts surrounding gender inequality and address the social and economic disadvantages girls are facing around the world. Read about inspirational stories of overcoming extreme adversity, tackling stereotypes, and explore how we can all contribute to encouraging women and girls to have equal opportunities!
When a young girl triumphed over a brutal attack by the Taliban, her courage resonated around the globe. This picture book brings the stories of Malala Yousafzai and Iqbal Masih to young readers through simple text and illustrations that eloquently portray their fearless struggle for equality. These inspirational accounts will engage students in discussions about children's fundamental human rights while teaching them that they are never too young to make a difference in their community or the world.

Activities
  • Read the stories of Malala and Iqbal, two brave children who use their voices to help other children
  • Watch this video to Understand Goal 5: Gender Equality
  • Access the teacher's guide for discussion questions and activities (p.18-21)
  • Read The Visible Girls, a story through the eyes of a child on gender issues in her home country
  • Watch this video to find out what your students can do to make a difference in gender equality
  • Use this lesson plan with older students to analyze gender portrayal and depictions of boys and girls in the media
  • Follow Noa's Journey to Power using this interactive quiz to learn more about human rights
  • Raise awareness on gender equality with these easy to use classroom activities
What did you think of Malala A Brave Girl from Pakistan/Iqbal A Brave Boy From Pakistan?
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All children have the basic human right to learn, yet millions of girls are being denied education due to poverty barriers. This lesson engages students in active discussions about the social and economic benefits of educating both genders and raises awareness of challenges facing girls in developing countries.


Activities
  • Watch this video to Understand Goal 5: Gender Equality
  • Use this Comic Book Characters lesson plan to teach students how male and female characters are depicted in comic books 
  • Read Chakra the Invincible to learn more about Global Goal 5 Gender Equality. Access the teacher's guide (p.6-7) for discussion questions and activities
  • Have students create their own comic poster about SDG 5 gender equality
  • Use this Female Action Heroes lesson plan to have students identify stereotypical images of girls and women as represented by female action heroes. The students analyze the main characters' traits and compare the female action heroes to their male counterparts
What did you think of Everybody Wins When Girls Can Stay in School?
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Grades 8-12
This classroom resource created by Amnesty International contains six activities dealing with the topic of global gender inequality. The activities range from a consciousness-raising approach towards language and its gendered uses to discussions and research on significant inequality issues facing women.



Activities
  • Get outside and play for Goal 5 Gender Equality. After playing the game, discuss how students can reduce gender inequality where you live
  • Join a cause like The Malala Fund and #HeforShe to take a stand for gender equality and learn how to take action in your school, community and the world
  • Start a social justice or gender equality group in your school to work on these issues
  • Learn about gender equality in your community. How are people in my community experiencing the effects of gender inequality? How might a lack of gender equality affect me or others in my neighbourhood now, or in the future? How might it affect others around the world? Take action based on what you discover
  • Watch this video to find out what you can do to make a difference in gender equality
  • This Marketing to Teens: Gender Roles in Advertising lesson plan lets students take an ad campaign they have seen, which is specifically directed to one gender, and redesign the campaign to target the opposite gender
  • Participate in the From Where I Stand project, a gender equality project which enables students to think about and contribute to encouraging women and girls to have equal opportunities to be heard and to have real opportunities to participate in all political, economic and public spheres
What did you think of Women's Rights?
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About Learning Inside Out

Above you will find a selection of activities, broken down by various grade levels. These guides will be released weekly and archived on our Learning Inside Out page, so you can always access the full catalogue.

All activities have been modified from resources on our R4R database, simplified and adapted for both outdoor learning in the school yard or at-home as needed. The activity descriptions above should contain all the information and links that you need!

If you'd like to view the full original resource on R4R, including curriculum connections for every province/territory, click the activity title.

We want this guide to work for you, so your feedback is invaluable to us.
Use the feedback button at the bottom of this Guide, or email us at info@LSF-LST.ca. We would also love to see photos of students engaging in the activities, please e-mail us any pictures or videos you have!
Let us know how this helped your learning and teaching from home or at school indoors and (hopefully) outdoors and what you'd like to see more of by filling out our brief feedback form!
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Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) is a Canadian charity with over 25 years of experience working within the education system. Our Resources for Rethinking (R4R) database is an award-winning collection of resources that are peer-reviewed by certified teachers and connected to curriculum in all provinces and territories. R4R is recommended on many Ministry of Education websites.