What Else is Social Studies?: Law Related Education/Civics Education/Social Action

In class, we were assigned a project called "What else is Social Studies". There are many other topics that are considered "Social Studies". We were each assigned a partner and a topic and I was instructed to work with Nicole S. on Law Related Education/civics education/ social action. We decided to use the website, Prezi, to present our research.



Prezi is a tool used to present information as a slideshow similar to PowerPoint. Prezi is easy to use and navigate and provides templates that can be appealing to the audience. For our presentation, we decided to use a template that resembles a map of the world. When working on our Prezi, we had some difficulties because it was a new tool we've both never used before but once we became familiar with it, I noticed that it is easy to use.


Our topic was Law Related Education. Before starting our research, I thought Law Related Education was just learning about the government but I've learned so much as a discovered what it includes and how to teach this topic. Law Related Education (LRE) is education that teaches individuals how to act as citizen and how the law affects them. It's used to develop an understanding of how to respond to the law and legal issues in society. LRE should be included in the Social Studies curriculum for four reasons: development of knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for citizenship, prevention of delinquency, growth of student interest in the Social Studies, and facts and concepts are necessary in order to understand history. To help students learn more about LRE, the class can be provided with programs, debates, mock trials, and activities that would engage the students about law related education. Another way to engage to have the students interact students with resource persons, including lawyers, judges, police officers, and legislators. This is helpful for the students to get an experience where they can see that the material is important in real world situations.

Here's a blog on Mock Trial Resources in the classroom. I will use mock trials in my classroom because it is a good activity to engage students in the material by role-playing. Students can understand the importance of the law and see how it works.

The next part of our topic was Civic Education and Social Service. In our presentation, we talked about social action and how it is defined as taking steps forward to change things in our society. We also talked about how civic education is education teaching how to participate in outdoor activities related to education, how to be active outside the classroom, and how to help the community. When explaining social service, we explained why it is important for students to learn the leadership skills. The reasons were: when working with someone or a group of people to achieve something, teaching someone, engaging someone to take a point of view, helping a group arrive to a conclusion, showing appreciation for a contribution, and finally, giving feedback. Here's a video in civic awareness to educate students:

We then provided the components to civic awareness which are: knowing the history of the US, the processes of the local, state, and national governments, and unique rights and responsibilities as citizens. 

Here are lesson plans for teaching LRE.

Here are lesson plans for teaching civics education. 

Overall, LRE/Civics Education/Social action is very important for students and be taught and explained in ways where students understand a real-life perspective and how important the topics are.