Faith CoLab: Tapestry of Faith: Sing to the Power: A Social Justice Program for Children Grades 4-5

Activity 1: Story - Water Justice Tour

Activity time: 10 minutes

Materials for Activity

Preparation for Activity

  • Read the story and prepare to share it with the group.
  • Read the discussion questions. Choose those that will best help the children share their interpretations of the story and relate it to their own lives.

Description of Activity

Read or tell the story to the group.

After the story, invite the group to be silent for a moment to think about the story. Then, ask participants to recap the story in their own words. What they recall indicates what they found most meaningful or memorable.

Say something like:

Often, people think the first step of changing the world for the better is to plan your action-to figure out what you're going to do. But there's an important step that goes before that: Learning just what the problem is, who is affected by it, how they are affected, what's causing the problem, who does not want a change because their needs are being served by the way things are. Learn everything you can. As activists, we need to be constantly moving forward, but the best way forward often starts with taking the time to really learn about the problem and all the people involved.

Lead a discussion using these questions:

  • What new information about water did you hear in this story?
  • Was there anything that surprised you?
  • In what ways did the young adults on the water justice tour put what they learned into action after the trip?
  • The Water Justice Tour was basically a big field trip. What field trip have you been on that taught you something interesting or important? Did you get to carry forward the knowledge you gathered? That is, did you share it with anyone? How?
  • When has someone helped you understand something you needed to know in order to solve a problem?
  • When have you been able to help someone else with information they needed to solve a problem?