Humane Educator's Toolbox: The World in a T-Shirt

One of our Facebook friends pointed us to a new Planet Green series called Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts, which follows six British fashion hipsters as they travel to India to learn about -- and experience -- the conditions under which many of their clothes are made. I don't have a TV, so I can't see the show, but the clips online make it look like it would be a good tool in helping students learn about the impact of their clothing choices.

Many times when we at IHE do the True Price activity for workshops or presentations -- when we look at the positive and negative impacts of a product on ourselves, other people, other species and the earth -- we use a T-shirt, because it's a great example of how something so simple and ubiquitous has such a huge impact around the world.

Here are a couple of other useful resources for teaching about human rights, social justice, environmental preservation and more, using the T-shirt as a springboard.

In 1998 a UCLA freshman made a film, Sweating for a T-shirt, about her journey to discover who made the shirt -- made in Honduras -- that she bought in her campus gift shop.

One of our certificate students created a humane education activity, Where in the World?, to help high school students make the connection between what they wear & the conditions under which it's made.

And, one of our M.Ed. graduates, as her thesis, created an entire curriculum, The Shirt Off My Back, that looks at the impact of the T-shirt on other people, animals and the earth, and its relation to marketing, advertising and consumerism in youth.

~ Marsha

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