Step 4 involves students deciding what action to take and how to plan for it.
Step 4 aims to:
- enable students to consider the feasibility of possible actions and decide on one
- support students in making detailed plans on what they need to do, their message, target audience, and who is doing what
- develop and extend skills in enquiry - collate information to assess ideas and reach conclusions; communication - contribute to exploratory group and class discussions and take part in debates; participation - negotiate, decide and plan for action.
Email globallinks@actionaid.org.uk with any new lesson ideas and/or examples of student's work. We'll put these in the Global links gallery.
Action tree
Draw the outline of a tree on a large piece of paper and write your issue onto the trunk. Think about possible actions you could take in response to your issue and write each action onto a fruit.
Write ways of achieving these actions onto the relevant branches. Label the roots with the resources needed. Discuss each action in turn, how feasible is it, how much difference will it make, how much work does it involves?
Which action?
Copy the Which action? worksheet onto a large piece of paper and give each person some sticky dots. Write all possible actions in the first column, and add your own question in the last column if you want to.
Each person can put up to five dots in each column. They can all be used to vote for one action or can be divided between several different actions.
At the end, the action with the most votes in total will be the one that the class/group adopts.
» Which action? worksheet (.rtf)
Human knot game
Stand in a circle holding hands then break the chain at one point. Form a knot by tangling up eg going over or under other people's arms. Join the final link of the chain then try and untangle without letting go off any hands.
Our action
Fill in the Our action worksheet to show how you decided to act and why.
» Our action worksheet (.rtf)
Planning the action
Draw a flow chart to plan your action. Draw six boxes on a piece of paper. In the first one write 'issue' and fill in your issue. Draw an arrow to the second box and write 'goal' and fill in what you want to happen.
In the third box write 'action' and what you are going to do. In the fourth write 'evidence' and explain how you will record your work. In the fifth write 'indicators' and explain what will happen if you are successful. In the final box write 'result'. Fill this in after your action. Make sure the chain of boxes is connected with arrows.