Students will take out their Learning Logs or journals, write their responses to these two questions from the anticipatory set, and justify their answers.

• Note: Tell the learners that philanthropic or Non-Governmental Organizations in Panama are largely concerned with environmental problems. It is only in the last 10 or 15 years that NGOs were formed to help the native peoples living in their country.
• Model with your learners the nation of Panama and construct a timeline of historical events that have impacted the development of stewardship and philanthropy (see Bibliographical References for sources of information). Discuss with the learners, the grassroots movement that led to the United States giving control of the Panama Canal back to the Panamanians when the lease was up. Develop the themes of place, location, time, relationship of people to the environment (include building of the canal, disease) and movement.
• Divide the classroom into groups of four to five learners and assign each group either the continent of North America, Central America or South American to investigate. One group will research and analyze Mexico and its nonprofit organizations. The second group will research and analyze Canada and its nonprofit organizations. The third will do the same with Peru. If your class size allows for more than three groups, divide Canada into provinces and have groups research a particular province.
• Each group will be responsible for the following:
  • Research the physical geography, history and culture of their country.
  • Produce a physical/political map of the nation.
  • Compile and evaluate statistics on the ethnic makeup and socio economic connections of their country and display the data on a line or bar graph. Example: ethnic group and poverty, ethnic group and levels of education.
  • Investigate the nonprofit organizations and foundations and determine which ethnic group receives the greatest percentage of services. Relate their activities as advocacy groups. Show how their activities promote the common good.
  • Once they have the percentage, hypothesize the reason(s) for the disparity. Then, look back at their historical research to determine the accuracy of their hypothesis. They may record their hypotheses in their Learning Logs or journal.
  • Answer the question, "What is being done to reach a greater number of people who are receiving the least amount of services from nonprofit organizations?"
  • What cultural differences are there in the group receiving fewer services and why are they harder to serve?
  • How are the four countries similar? Answers: The first peoples to inhabit each of these countries were native peoples. How are they different? Sample answer: Cultural traditions vary from tribe to tribe and country because of the varied terrain.