Exploring global awareness using photographs

Inquiry Mindset have sourced collections of photos from sites such as The Guardian and The Huffington Post, from different global contexts, showcasing the vibrant and diverse lives people lead. Photographs provide a fantastic and engaging way to inspire your students to consider the experiences of others. They can be used as a starter activity to encourage deeper thinking on a global topic, as a tool for creative writing or as visual prompts during a class discussion. Images also make an excellent stimulus for a Philosophy for Children (P4C) style enquiry; give students time to look at and discuss a selection of the photographs, and then let them state a ‘wonder’ (using the talk frame ‘I wonder…’) they have to do with the image. These ‘wonders’ can then be turned into brilliant questions for a philosophical enquiry. Photo themes include:

• Girls around the world going to school
• How classrooms look around the world
• What the world eats in pictures
• The most dangerous journeys to school

The website also has links to different ways these collections of photographs can be used to encourage students to critically reflect, such as doing a Concept Walk or taking a See, Think, Wonder approach with a selection of the images.