This is the second of four environment-themed case studies (the others are the Chipko Movement in India, Right to Roam in UK and Sheffield Street Trees). This lesson uses the story of Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and the Green Belt Movement in Kenya to explore the concept of influence – who do we influence and who influences us?

This lesson is one of two alternative core lessons (the other is Bristol Bus Boycott) to be completed after Lesson 1 and 2. It introduces an important idea of the “Pillars of Support”, which will be referred to in subsequent case study lessons. It uses a mystery activity as a way of engaging the learners with the case study. Groups are given different parts of the OTPOR story and have to piece together what happened by asking the other groups questions. For it to work it is important that that no one knows the whole story at the start of the lesson.

This lesson uses relatable, fictional scenarios to enable the learners to think about their own understanding of violent and non-violent actions before engaging with actual historical case studies. Pictures of objects which could be used in non-violent or violent actions are introduced for the learners to think of their own creative uses and consider whether their ideas are violent or non-violent. These objects can be spotted in the subsequent case studies and will be used again in the final lesson to evaluate learning. The activity is designed to be open-ended and creative rather than to directly teach how the objects could be used. “Pupils were highly enthusiastic and engaged in the content.”

This series of lessons takes learners through a participatory step by step process of thinking about issues they care about in their school or local community; choosing an issue; researching it; deciding on the change they would like to see; deciding on an action; planning, doing and evaluating the action. These lessons are designed to take place after learners have experienced some historical case studies and the contemporary case study lesson but could also stand alone as an active citizenship activity as a day event or for a school council. The ideas are based with permission on the resource Get Global! Oxfam, 2007, as well as on real life planning of actions for change. It is important that learners are given the freedom to decide for themselves whether they wish to take action or not and the kind of change they would like to see but also that they are supported by adults to ensure that they have a positive experience of change being possible or at least understand what more they need to do to achieve this.