The 2012 Olympics start in 32 days, and recent TV programming was lousy with Olympic trials. (Including this amazing tie for third place in the women’s 100 meters.)
And while the athletes (and advertisers) are preparing, teachers are also preparing to use the Olympics to engage students.
Project Britain has developed some teaching resources — pretty basic links to info on Britain and the history of the Olympics.
And several sites have fairly detailed lessons plans, including A-Z Teacher Stuff, the British Red Cross, and Teacher Vision.
But one of the more sophisticated and thoughtful tools I’ve seen is the 2012 Olympics and East London’s Regeneration from Pumpkin Interactive. Each student role-plays being a journalist as he investigates the economic and environmental impacts of the massive construction that is preceding the Olympic Games. (For U.S. teachers, it is correlated to British academic standards.) It isn’t free, but a sample can be downloaded for free.
The design isn’t perfect — it is a little rough. But major kudos to finding an interesting angle to engage students in an important discussion.
A lot of other tools will surface in the next few weeks, but the 2012 Olympics and East London’s Regeneration is a good start.