After researching about social entrepreneurship and a famous social entrepreneur as well as the problems, needs and wants of the people in their community, students will create a social enterprise.  Connected to their social enterprise, students will utilize everyday items given to them by their instructor to create a product and advertisement. Students will communicate with other students of the designated country to learn about their interests and needs. Using the six to eight items (which can include an eraser, bottle cap, etc.) given to them in a brown paper bag, students will invent a product and create an advertisement to sell to their peers in the other country. Each school will then evaluate the finished products. At the end of the project students will complete a service learning/community service activity related to their social enterprise.

Project Timeline

October 15-28, 2012: Students post about social entrepreneurs and their social enterprises in their country or ones from other countries who they admire. Students write comments on student postings.

October 29-November 11, 2012: Students identify problems in their community and create a social enterprise to address these problems. Postings of social enterprise descriptions are completed by the end of the two weeks. Again, students post comments on descriptions from other countries.

November 12-25, 2012: Distribute product in a bag items to students and begin creating products and advertisements related to the social enterprise.

November 26-December 9, 2012: Finalize products and advertisements and post pictures on forum.

December 10-23, 2012: Post comments on products and advertisements posted by students in other countries. The postings with the most comments which positively describe the product will be the winning team.

New Year’s Break (December 24, 2012-January 6, 2013)

January 7-15, 2013: Complete service learning/community service related to social enterprise and post a description and pictures of the activity. Students post a comment about the others students service work.

Interested?  iEARN participants can join via the Product in a Bag project page on the iEARN Collaboration Centre. 

Not yet a member?  To join iEARN in the United States, see us.iearn.org/join.