|
|
The European Union 2 - Lesson Plan: 2 x 1 hour lessons
A series of 'off the shelf' lesson plans and resources for use in the classroom. These lessons deal with the European Union and are relevant to the following specifications:
- AQA: Module 6, 15.4
- Edexcel: Unit 6
- OCR: Module 2888
Aim:
This lesson looks at issues facing Europe as it moves forward following enlargement in 2004. The new Commission has set itself a number of challenging targets, not least in dealing with poverty and unemployment, which are both still at relatively high levels considering the wealth of the Union as a whole.
The lesson looks at two key statements from the new Social Agenda set by new Commission President, José Manuel Barroso: one on poverty and one on unemployment and then asks students to consider what the benefits might be to EU member states of the Agenda items and how monetary, fiscal and supply side policies might be used to try to achieve the aims set out by the Commission. The final task asks students to offer some critical evaluation of the policies and what they might mean in terms of the consequences of these policies.
The aim of the latter task is to try to get students to understand the benefits of the policies such as supporting women back into the labour market and giving greater protection to workers but that such measures can lead to greater inflexibilities in the labour market and unemployment - the very problem the Commission are trying to deal with.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of the lessons students should demonstrate the following:
- An understanding of the possible impact of enlargement on the EU
- An understanding of the extent of the problem of poverty and unemployment in the EU
- An understanding of the main aims of the EU Commission to deal with these problems
- An understanding of how monetary, fiscal and supply side policies can be used to tackle the problems identified
- An understanding of the problems that might arise in implementing these policies and the impact they might have on resource allocation
- An ability to make critical judgments on such policies and their outcomes
Resources:
Lesson Structure:
Lesson 1
- Divide students into groups of three (or pairs) and ask them to consider the following questions.
- What is the most effective way to allocate scarce resources?
- How would your method of allocating scarce resources help contribute towards reducing poverty and unemployment?
(10 minutes)
- Get each group to feed back their answers and write up the main points on the board. (The aim is to provide a refresher of the issues and problems associated with the basic economic problem.) (10 minutes)
- Get students to work on the assumption that government was attempting to tackle the problems of unemployment and poverty, and get students to outline how fiscal, monetary and supply side policies could be used to tackle these problems. (15 minutes)
- Get students to use the Eurostat Web site to find out unemployment and poverty levels in the EU - get them to specify countries where problems appear to be worse and also an EU average. (10 minutes)
- Show the PowerPoint Presentation to highlight the key issues in preparation for the Activity. (10 minutes)
- Review the main outcomes of the session. (5 minutes)
Lesson 2
- Outline the main plans for the lesson. (5 minutes)
- Give out Activity and outline the main learning objectives. Students can continue to work in groups or do the task individually. The tasks can be carried out as a written exercise for summative assessment or can be used as the basis for class discussion. (35 minutes)
- Bring students together to discuss the outcomes. Use this session to emphasise the learning objective of understanding the strengths and limitations of policies in solving some problems but creating others at the same time. (15 minutes)
- Review main outcomes of the lessons. (5 minutes)
|
