IDENTIFYING A TOPIC

IDENTIFYING A T PIC

Understanding Social Action Social action involves identifying a problem or injustice and working toward solutions.

Focuses on creating change that promoting justice, equity, and community well-being.

Requires passion, research, and advocacy.

Getting Started Ask yourself: What is a problem in society that I feel is unjust? What are my passions? What matters to me?

Community oriented topics How does my project relate to justice and equity?

Sustainable Development Goals Use the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals to spark your thinking! To choose a topic, you need to pick something that you can help solve.

Race relationsEnviornmental

Helping with climate change, learning how to be sustainable with materials

Equality

Gender: equal rights researching policy changes

advancing understanding of marginalized races

Example

TOPICS

organizing an Asian American Culture fair Book drive featuring stories from Black authors

Brainstorming After looking over the examples, write down any and all topic ideas you have! The most important thing to consider is that this is YOUR project, so it should be meaningful to you. After you have written down at least 5 issues, narrow it down...

A GOOD TOPIC IS...

1

Scaleable- A good topic can start small and grow larger. You should be able to begin with something manageable at the local level and then involve other schools, cities, states, etc.

2

High Impact- The larger the potential impact, the more meaningful your work will be. You want a quality impact that you can leave behind on the world. How many people will this affect? How important is this problem?

3

Engaging- you want to spread the word of your community project as well as

collaborate with others further down the line so you want it to be exciting and appealing.

This can be difficult to come up with, but keep in mind ...

You do NOT have to solve this problem entirely! For example, no one expects you to end world hunger on your own.

Don’t get too caught up in trying to find the “perfect” topic: just find an issue, and stick to it! You got this!

Research Social change begins with understanding the problem and research helps you find the best strategies for action.

A well-researched cause is more likely to lead to high-impact results.

Look for statistics from credible sources to support your topic!

Begin researching your identified societal problem!