Links and Other Resources: Curricula

Check out our teaching materials as well!

General Health & Safety

Safe Jobs for Youth: A theme-based curriculum unit for high school students

UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program, 2000.

This 10 class/2 week curriculum covers a variety of topics including: child labor law information, job safety hazards and solutions, handling sexual harassment on the job, and workers’ compensation for working teens. This material uses interactive, student-centered activities that are designed for the 9th grade, but is also very appropriate for 10-12 grade students.

Choices for Life

Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission (WHSCC), New Brunswick.

Provides teachers with fun and interactive activities that explore an array of health and safety issues at home, school, work and play. Designed to help youth, grades K to 12, develop the skills to make safe choices and develop an understanding that accidents can be prevented.

Health and safety awareness for working teens

University of Washington, 1999.

The hands-on and fast-paced lessons enable students to be proactive in evaluating and resolving workplace health and safety issues through role-playing exercises and games. This 7-unit curriculum is designed for teens and young workers in grades 9-12.

Live Safe/Work Smart

Work Smart Ontario, Ontario Ministry of Labour, Canada.

This is a teachers’ guide to interactive activities for grades K-12. Some materials are customized for cooperative education, youth with special learning needs, and youth that volunteer. Employer, parent and supervisor tip sheets are also available.

Lost Youth – Four stories of injured young workers

Workers’ Compensation Board of British Columbia.

Video and discussion guide.

Safe Work Student Program

Young Worker Safety and Education Initiative, Workers’ Compensation Board of Manitoba.

Safe Work is a curriculum for teachers.

Seven things you’d better know (Young Worker Awareness Program)

Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, Ontario.

Training kit for teachers or others to provide basic introduction on health and safety, including video with 8 industry-specific segments.

Starting safely: teaching youth about workplace safety and health

Workplace Development Center, 2000.

This teacher’s guide is designed to teach high school students the basic concepts of occupational health and safety and to raise their awareness about these issues. It uses a video and a series of interactive activities.

Healthy Communities, Healthy Jobs

UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program.

This is an interactive, 37-session, semester-long curriculum for high school students. The units are written to progressively build a knowledge base for students on the topics of environmental health, workplace health and safety, critical thinking, peer education, leadership and communication skills. It is comprised of five units:

Unit I: Introduction: Using Case Studies as Learning Tools
Unit II: Healthy Communities
Unit III: Safe Jobs for Youth
Unit IV: Peer Education
Unit V: Conclusion: Reflections and Next Steps

Peer Education (Unit IV of Healthy Communities/Healthy Jobs)

UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program.

This fifteen-session unit focuses on how youth peer educators can organize and teach other students, their families, or community groups about workplace health and safety.

It contains sessions on how to work as a team, how to develop lesson plans, how to make presentations, and how to teach health and safety using a popular education approach. It also provides sample lesson plans for teaching workplace health and safety.

Toxics on the job: protecting your health.

American Lung Association and the Labor Occupational Health Program, 1992.

This curriculum is designed for vocational education instructors to teach workers about toxics and tobacco. It includes units for welders, machinists, auto repair workers, and construction workers, and a general handbook for students in other trades.

Labor History

Bringing labor into the K-12 curriculum

California Federation of Teachers.

A 12-page listing of resources.

From forge to fast food: A history of child labor in New York state, volumes I & II

Greene, J.W. for the New York Labor Legacy Project, 1995.

This teacher’s guide is intended for seventh and eighth grade courses in U.S. and New York State histories.

The first volume covers the colonial period, slavery, apprenticeship, household production in the 18th century, the industrial revolution, urban manufacturing and sweatshops. The second volume covers the period from the Civil War to the present.

Child Labor — Then and Now

UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program, 2004.

This is a four-session standards-based unit. The first session provides a historical context of the period (Progressive Era, 1900-1920), particularly how it relates to child labor and workplace health and safety. The second session introduces students to Lewis Hine and his crusade to end the abuses of child labor. Session three connects child labor and workplace health and safety – “then and now.” The fourth session begins a discussion of how laws protect young workers and encourages the students to examine the effectiveness of child labor laws today.

The core content includes the identification of 62 jobs and job hazard analysis dealing with specific tasks that make up those jobs and the level of supervision required.