WebQuest - What Is Poverty and Who Are the Poor?

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Related Links - Evaluating Web Sites

This activity is a supplement to Lesson 1.

Introduction

Thanks to film, television, and our own experiences, we all have personal mental images of poverty. While these images help to form our individual opinions about issues surrounding world poverty, the very fact that they are personal means that they may be difficult to discuss with others. Fortunately, we can take steps to make communication easier. Discussing a controversial issue like world poverty is more likely to be productive if the word "poverty" means the same thing to everyone in the discussion.
Before attempting to answer the question of whether capitalism is good for the poor, your class must agree on some common vocabulary. The goal of this webquest is to arrive at a working definition, so that when a classmate refers to "world poverty," or "the poor," those participating in the discussion actually hear what the speaker thought she said.

Tasks:

Steps to Take:

  1. Individually, generate a working list of characteristics and indicators that you believe define world poverty and/or characterize the world's poor.
  1. In your group, discuss the individual lists and compile a list of possible critical attributes of world poverty.
    • The term "critical attributes," as used in logic, means those characteristics of a concept which must be present for the concept to exist. Identifying the critical attributes of world poverty allows you to examine an instance or circumstance and decide if it is an example of the concept.
      • (For example, here's an interesting question: Does poverty in the U.S. have the same critical attributes as world poverty?)
    • Another way to think of critical attributes is to ask yourselves: "How do we tell who is poor and who isn't?" or "How do we decide whether or not a nation is poor?" or "How do we draw a line to separate the poor from the non-poor?"

     

  1. Divide the critical attribute list among group members and use the websites given under the Resources section to reconsider the items in terms of what information you find from the sources about the world's poor. Be alert to commonalities, patterns, trends, magnitude as you compare the web content to your listed items.
  1. Investigate a minimum of 5 sources that define, identify, categorize, characterize, and/or describe world poverty through images, graphics, data, and/or text.
    • Use the links in the Resources section, below. See where they lead you. Remember that sometimes the information you seek does not just pop up on the site; you may have to explore links embedded in the sites themselves.
    • One of your 5 sources must be a site other than those listed on this page. To find additional sources you must follow links embedded in the sources listed here.  You may not use Google or any other search engine to find additional resources.
    • The websites given in the Resources section have been specifically chosen for their appropriateness to this activity.  However, these sites may contain other links of interest.  Remember that following links embedded in these websites may direct you to new sites – which have not been evaluated for this activity, so you must decide whether or not to accept the information you find.  First, evaluate the website. Not all web sites are of equal value. Some questions to ask yourself before accepting a website as one of your sources:
      • Is the author / sponsor of the site identified? Is contact information or a contact link provided? Is there an "About Us" (or similar) section, in which the organization or individual identifies its mission and the purpose of the website? (Use the URL ending to begin answering this question: .com is a commercial site; .org is a non-profit organization; .gov is government; and .edu is an educational institution.
      • Is the purpose of the website to provide data/information, to support a cause or point of view, to urge people to action? Is there any reason to suspect that the information offered on the website has been filtered by bias or a "strong" point of view?
      • Is the data provided on the site verified or supported by other sites you've visited?
      • Here is a list of sources to help you evaluate websites:

 

  1. Reconvene your group and share your findings. Reach a consensus on the critical attributes list. Based on your findings, write a short (no more than 2 sentences) answer to the question:

In terms of the world's population, what is poverty and who are the poor?

  1. Create a visual of the "typical" poor person to illustrate your answer. Your visual must contain 3 elements:
    • a human figure labeled with the characteristics of world poverty - age, gender, race, health, etc.;
    • evidence of the location and/or distribution of world poverty;
    • evidence of the critical attributes of world poverty

Your group may draw your “typical” poor person or you may use a software program like PowerPoint to create your visual.  Turn in your group’s list of critical attributes with the visual.

  1. Choose a spokesperson and prepare a short (2 minute) presentation to explain how your group's visual answers the assignment question and completes the task.
    (Alternately, your teacher may choose to schedule a gallery walk in which all groups will post their visuals for classmates to examine.)

 

Resources

The World Bank – Poverty Data:  provides in-depth information on world poverty.

The United Nations: The UN website contains a significant number of embedded links to further information on poverty and the state of the world’s population.

Note: Each of the 8 items (purple font) is a link to a set of graphic data. For example: Eradicating Hunger

World Poverty: These links will provide other information on poverty.

Poverty in the United States: These links may help you to decide how (and if) the United States fits into the picture of world poverty