When We Have To

Idea behind the song:

I am, at once, deeply concerned about the unsustainable society we are creating and my lack of making significan lifestyle changes on my own. I want to be part of a culture that is more environmentally conscious. I use this at the end of my "Material World" unit on earth's limited resources. I have them collectively analyze the possible meanings in the song to asess learning.

Lesson idea:

Please look at the Material World Lesson Plan. In this, students use photographs of families from around the world as an inquiry study, to infer the impact of human beings on The Planet. (standard) In the early 1990's, Peter Menzel, an award-winning photographer was distressed because Madonna's song, "Material World" was getting more attention than the real material world! For the anniversary of United Nations, Peter Menzel persuaded thirty families from thirty nations around the globe to take all of their posessions, put them on the lawn in front of their homes, stand in front of their homes and he took their pictures. My students use these, statistics given in the book, satellite pictures, charts and graphs of energy use and emissions, and internet websites to determine natural resource use, cause-effect, ecological footprint. THIS UNIT IS POWERFUL! It gets them thinking BIG, globally. To see some student comments from reflection sheets look here.

At the end of this unit I put the lyrics to the song on the overhead. By tables--groups of four, I have them read through the lyrics then decide what they think "the artist" meant by each line or phrase. After ten minutes, we get back into the big group and discuss it. It is amazing how much more they understand by the end of the unit!

Listen to the song and decide what you think the song means, then click here to see my original thoughts.

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