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Fair Trade in Your School

At all levels, teachers and students are encouraged to bring fair trade into their schools. FTF members and partners provide an array of lesson plans, resources, videos, events, and opportunities for students.

Lesson Plans

  • BeadforLife Curriculum - Offers step-by-step instructions for middle/high schools, reproducible handouts, video, original African music, simulations, and discussions to better understand global poverty and how youth can make a difference.
  • Global Exchange Lesson Plans and Activities -  Resources by and for elementary, junior high, high school, and college teachers; particularly focused on the Global Exchange Chocolate Campaign.
  • Marilyn Anderson Teacher's and Parent's Guide - Six lessons for grades 3-5 and 6-8. Lessons can be used with or without the Maya Arts and Crafts of Guatemala coloring book.
  • Equal Exchange's Introduction to Fair Trade and Cooperative Economics- Composed of four units, the curriculum offers 124 pages of interactive classroom activities to raise students' awareness of the issues surrounding food production and trade. The curriculum addresses US curriculum standards for grades 4-9 and offers a flexible structure for teachers to incorporate into current lesson plans.
  • Catholic Relief Services Fair Trade Lesson Plans - CRS has developed learning modules for middle and secondary school classrooms to explore the principles of social justice in the context of fair trade. They have a full array of background material, interactive lesson ideas, and useful class assignments.
  • Handcrafting Justice's Fair World For All- Curriculum kit designed to introduce elementary and middle school students to introduces students to globalization, Fair Trade, and social justice. Includes PowerPoint Presentation, lesson plans, activity ideas, and other resources.
  • Coffee Kids Curriculum - Provides students with an understanding of global trade and development. Resources useful for a variety of ages, include maps and details on the coffee process and life in coffee communities. 
  • Bananas Unpeeled (English-version) / Les Bananes Toutes Crues (French Version) - Discusses the hidden costs of banana production and trade; a Global Education Curriculum Developed for the Ontario Grade 12 Canadian and World Issues Course
  • Trading Fairly In Our World - A Social Studies Unit for Grade 6 from Eastern Ontario Catholic Curriculum Cooperative. Available in English and French
  • Tools to Teach Fair Trade - The Fair Trade Resource Network has compiled curricula from around the world to assist in teaching about fair trade.

Resources

  • Convert Diving Services - Easy steps from Equal Exchange to educate your dining services office about converting to fair trade.
  • Organize a Campaign - Time-tested methods for jump-starting or strengthening a fair trade campaign on college campuses from United Students for Fair Trade.

Videos 

  • Awaken Your Consciousness - A thirteen minute video from Equal Exchange that takes viewers on a journey through the coffee-growing lands of Nicaragua to meet coffee farmers and learn to offer hope and dignity to farmers across the globe by transforming business and trade.
  • Banana Split - Explores the North/South split between consumers and the people whose lives revolve around banana production
  • Calcutta Hilton - Find out how Freeset Bags started in Calcutta's Red Light district to meet the needs of women fleeing the sex trade.
  • Trading as One - Learn about Trade as One's producers in Cambodia and Thailand, as well as how the company began through their YouTube videos and free DVDs
  • Market Driven Restoration - Guayaki Founder Alex Pryor discusses the role of yerba mate in providing market-driven restoration of the rainforest in Argentina
  • Black Gold - Trace Tadesse Meskela's journey from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to London, UK, to Seattle, WA in his effort save his struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy.
  • Campesinos ...La terre va nous rester (We will Inherit the Earth) - Featuring the stories of three children living in farming cooperatives in Central America.
  • WorldCrafts Village - See and hear how WorldCrafts is making a difference in the lives of 60+s artisan groups around the world.
  • Other Videos - The Fair Trade Resource Network lists videos from around the world that exhibit the strong connections that consumers have with those who make the goods we use and the food we eat.

Events, Games, and Activities

  • Fundraisers - Raise money for your school by offering unique fair trade products.
  • Fair Trade Olympics - Ideas for fun games  with a Fair Trade spin
  • Rhythm Events - Interactive, fun and meaningful experiences with fair trade instruments from JAMTOWN. Great for all ages.
  • Eighth Wonder Adopt A Terrace - The Adopt A Terrace Program is an intervention initiative to address the land crisis in the Philippines through the farmers associated with the Cordillera Heirloom Rice Project.
  • Fair Trade Open House - Trails to Bridges will fill the hallways with treasures for sale from close to 20 countries.
  • WorldCrafts Games - Scavenger Hunt instructions and guessing games for a variety of ages
  • Fair Trade Chocolate Games - Online video games from Divine Chocolate UK 
  • Cocoa Trading Game - Prepared by Just Us! Development and Education Society and adapted from Pa Pa Paa's The Trading Game; asks participants to take on a role and experience what it might be like to be part of the cocoa trade.
  • Craft Activity - Women of the Cloudforest offers everything you need to teach students about the rainforest and to make rainforest seed bracelets
  • Fair Trade Events Calendar - Find out what great fair trade events are taking place in your area with the Fair Trade Resource Networks' events calendar.

 Opportunities for Students

  • Mercado Global Student Entrepreneur Program - Student groups across the country affiliate with Mercado Global to make a difference in the lives of families abroad by expanding the market for fair trade goods.  Through marketing efforts on campus and in their communities, student affiliates provide fair wage employment for cooperative members and additional funding for local scholarships.

  • Guide to Internships in Coffee-Producing Communities - Published by the Community Agroecology Network (CAN) and Oxfam America, this multi-purpose handbook helps students prepare for internships in CAN�s partner communities in Central America and Mexico.

Student Groups

  • United Students for Fair Trade - A network of student organizations advocating around fair trade products, policies, and principles, USFT organizes over 100 active student groups in the US,  provides leadership development and capacity building through intensive international exchanges and skill-building conferences, and serves as a resource group for student-based affiliates.
  • Canadian Student Fair Trade Network- A network representing thousands of students, they seek to shift the purchasing-decisions of individuals, organizations, businesses, and governments across Canada to choices that encompass a respect for human rights and dignity, and environmental sustainability as understood over decades by the Fair Trade movement.
  • Oxfam America's CHANGE Initiative - College students entering their sophomore or junior year can take advantage of Oxfam America's leadership training and become skilled and knowledgeable agents of change. Exposed to the international development issues that direct Oxfam's work, CHANGE Leaders use their new skills and insights to run Oxfam campaigns on their campuses and in their local communities.
  • ENGAGE - ENGAGE builds the next generation of global citizens by translating the study abroad experience into lifelong connections and cooperative action between peoples and social movements working toward a just and sustainable world.