Hands-on activity: Global Peace Photography Challenge

To share this project with your students, you can share this article, download our student PDF, or incorporate pieces of it into your existing lessons.

“The Global Peace Photo Award aims to discover the best picture of the better side of humans and the positive aspects of changes in this world.” – Peter-Matthias Gaede

Grade Level: High School

Subject Areas: Photography, Social Studies, World History, Art/Art History, World Geography, Literature & Language Arts, World Cultures, Journalism

Objective: Learn about the Global Peace Photo Award and create your own series of peace photographs

Essential Question: How can photography be used as a tool to better understand the world we live in?

Overview: In this lesson, students will watch a video discussing human rights and responsibility, learn about the Global Peace Photo Award, then create their own peace photo.

Materials: Students will need:

“Change doesn’t stop with one generation. Sit down with the grandsons of the greats—Mandela and Gandhi—for a conversation on human rights and responsibility.” – EF Educational Tours YouTube channel.

To get in the right mindset, watch this video. Consider and/or discuss your thoughts about the following quote from Arun Gandhi’s website: “However, he learned from his parents and grandparents that justice does not mean revenge, it means transforming the opponent through love and suffering…Grandfather taught Arun to understand nonviolence through understanding violence.”

Ultimately, the Global Peace Photo Award recognizes and promotes photographers from all over the world whose pictures capture human efforts towards a peaceful world and the quest for beauty and goodness. The award goes to those photographs that best express the idea that our future lies in peaceful coexistence.