Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra feature stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write a 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Tsunami Disaster Stirs Massive Aid Effort, 01/05/05
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june05/aid_1-05.html

Initiating Questions:

1. How did you learn about the earthquake and tsunami in South Asia?

2. Who was affected? Which countries were affected? Where are they located?

3. What is the United States doing to help victims?

4. What are the most pressing issues facing residents of the islands affected by the disaster?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What has the Bush administration done to help victims of the South Asia disaster?

Secretary of State Colin Powell and President Bush's brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, toured the countries worst hit by the disaster to assess how best to help the survivors rebuild their homes and lives.
The Bush administration has increased its aid pledge from $35 million to $350 million and stationed an aircraft carrier off Indonesia, the country hardest hit by the disaster, so helicopters can ferry food and water.
President Bush also asked former President Bill Clinton and his father, former President George Bush, to head a fund-raising drive, urging Americans to donate.

2. What connection did Secretary Colin Powell make between helping tsunami victims and terrorism?

Speaking from Indonesia, Secretary Powell said American aid for Asia's tsunami victims shows the world that the United States is a caring country, perhaps allieviating some of the discontent that fuels terrorism.
"We believe it is in the best interest of those countries and it's in our best interest and it dries up those pools of dissatisfaction which might give rise to terrorist activity," he said.

3. How has the Internet helped fundraising efforts?

Stacy Palmer, the editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, a newspaper of the nonprofit world, gave some of the credit to the Internet.

"If you went to weather.com, it said here's how you can give. You went to amazon.com before you bought a book there was something that said here's how we can give," she said.

4. How can you tell if an organization is legitimate and effective?

Palmer added that it was safe to give online as long as the site is secure so your personal information cannot be seen or stolen by others, and that the Web site itself is legitimate; sometimes scam artists use similar but slightly different names or domain names.

"It's just like with online shopping or anything else. You have to be careful and be a smart donor," she said.

Palmer said donors should consider whether the organizations they give to are effective by asking "Do you have a track record? Have you ever done this kind of work before? Do you know how to provide relief in a way that really helps people and doesn't just get in the way?"

5. Why do fundraisers say is it better to give money than clothes and other items?

Fund-raisers said many Americans were offering clothes, food and water, but that cash is much easier to work with.
"It is the transportation costs that go up if you have to deliver these goods. The humanitarians on the ground know exactly what the need is. So that they with the cash can go out and buy local products, local commodities, and we want to help the economies of these countries," explained InterAction's McClymont.

"It's also more culturally appropriate, you know, if you're able to buy the goods right in the country," she added.

6. What did the relief organization Doctors Without Borders recently do to ensure that donors know how their money is being spent?

Some organizations have already received all the tsunami dollars they can use. Doctors Without Borders, a medical relief agency founded in 1971 by a group of French doctors, is telling donors that it has received a "sufficient" amount of money for its South Asia relief efforts.

The organization, which has raised about $20 million for tsunami victims, now asks donors to give to the general fund, which goes to less publicized humanitarian crises like the situation in Africa's Darfur region of Sudan.

7. What happened after the September 11 terrorist attacks that has made aid agencies cautious about spending donor money?

Agencies well remember the public anger directed at the American Red Cross in November 2001 when it announced that because it was receiving so many donations, it would use some money for other causes not directly related to the terrorist attacks. The agency quickly reversed course and pledged to use the "Liberty Fund" money for the victims.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Should the United States government spend taxpayer money on Asian disaster relief or let Americans give on their own? Why?

2. What considerations should Americans make before donating money?

3. Do you think the media is doing a good job describing what is going on in the affected areas? What more would you like to know about the situation?

4. What different groups can do something about the disaster -- schools, churches, city governments? What should they do?

5. If you were a government official who had to decide where to send a million dollars of aid, how would you decide which countries and crises to send it to?

Write a 300-500 word essay on either of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.