Lesson focus

  • Respect
  • Responsibility
  • Freedom
  • Integrity
  • Care and compassion

Expectations and goals

  • Students to explore the concept of strange laws
  • Students to understand how laws need to change to suit a society’s needs
  • Students to speculate on possible trends that may require law protection

Learning experiences

Classroom Ideas

  1. Introduce this lesson by placing this statement on the board for students: “Did you know it is illegal to dust your door mat on a Sunday?”
  2. Ask students why this law may have been created.(Answer – At the time it was created, people wore their ‘Sunday best’ clothes for attending church. Dust and dirt would damage clothes; thus a law was created to protect people.
  3. Explain to the students the concept of ‘strange laws’. Ask students to explore laws and consider why certain strange laws are created.
  4. Ask students to search on Google using the key phrase ‘the world’s strangest laws,’ and develop a list of 10 strange laws to share with the class (you may want to develop your own list of 20 websites instead, as some ‘strange laws’ may refer to sexual behaviour).
  5. Organise the class into small groups and provide them with access to Current and future trends (Resource 8 below). Ask the groups to complete by identifying current and future trends they believe may need to be covered by new laws.
  6. Tie the concept back to Crime Stoppers – it is important to protect what we value.
Extension

Students design a ‘strange law’ for the classroom. The principle that underpins the law must be about protecting people or upholding values.

Lesson focus questions

  1. Consider why certain strange laws are created.
  2. How has Crime Stoppers allowed the community to have a choice?
  3. What is civil law and social justice?
  4. How does it affect you? Can you take action?

Assessment tasks

Students to:

  1. Complete Current and future trends (Resource 8 below)

Download resources and tools

Printable lesson plan  [Download Year 7, Lesson 3 plan]

Resource 8: Resource 8: Current and future trends [Download Resource 8]