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Making difficult decisions about justice and fairness in a democracy requires the ability to balance conflicting rights and freedoms. The Canadian Civil Liberties Education Trust maintains that anyone who has the capacity to say “that’s not fair” can engage in critical thinking about important social justice issues.
Below you will find a number of lesson plans and resources that you can implement in your classrooms to engage students in questions of fairness. Please feel free to try these strategies in your classrooms and tell us how it went, or if you have a lesson plan of your own that you’d like to share with us, we’d love to hear from you! Simply email us at education@ccla.org.
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| Lesson Title | Age Level | Subject Area | Description |
| Seeking Refuge: Then and Now | 15 + | History; Law; Civics; Social Science; Politics; World Issues | Looking through an historical lens, students will analyse how Canada has treated refugees in the past and determine if our past actions should affect/inform law today. How can we treat refugees fairly? |
| CCLET Presents the Acorn Test (Intermediate/Senior) | 12 + | History; Law; Civics; Social Science; Politics; World Issues | A “prezi” presentation illustrating CCLET’s Acorn test: a miniature Oakes test to help determine whether a rule, law or action that limits a Charter right or freedom is fair and reasonable. |
| 5 – 12 | Language Arts; Humanities/Social Studies; Citizenship | Through the story book Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type, by Doreen Cronin, students will learn what it means to have a right or a freedom and also identify peaceful and legal ways to advocate for an important cause. | |
| That’s Not Fair! | 5 – 12 | Language Arts; Humanities/Social Studies; Citizenship | After viewing a short animated film from the That’s Not Fair! series, students will learn how to ask critcial thinking questions in order to determine whether a rule, law, or action that limits rights and freedoms is fair/reasonable. |
