Tomorrow, March 5th is the Eighth Grade Social Justice Teach In (and film festival)! The Eighth Graders have been working on this project for 5th months, and they are eager to share everything they’ve been working on to the middle school! There are 11 groups that focused on different social justice issues they thought were important, they are as followed: Immigration, Plastic Pollution, Ocean Warming, Equal Education, Women’s Reproductive Rights, Women in the Workplace, Death Penalty, Women in the Media, Foster Care, Low-Income Families, and Mass Incarceration. Each group has gone on fieldworks, these can range from interviews to volunteer work, and each group has created documentaries surrounding their topic, all with the help and support of teachers, specifically Momii and Sarah. Here are the descriptions of each documentary bellow!
(Provided by the Eighth Grade Team: Sarah & Momii)
| Documentary Title | Summary of Documentary |
| Let Kids Learn | Let Kids Learn explores the importance of education, who has access to it and who doesn’t, through the eyes of four eighth graders who care. |
| Breaking Reproductive Silence | Breaking Reproductive Silence follows a group of eighth grade girls through their journey learning about Reproductive Health in the U.S. including abortion, maternal health, and menstruation. |
| EmpowHERment: Breaking the Glass Ceiling | EmpoweHERment is about four young women who find their own voices as they explore sexual harassment in the workplace. |
| Drowning In Plastic | Drowning in Plastic will teach viewers about the overwhelming amount of plastic waste on the planet and some things we can do about it. |
| Injustice On Death Row | Injustice on Death Row raises awareness about the death penalty in the U.S. and the many innocent people are sentenced to die for crimes they didn’t commit. |
| Dear Media | Dear Media uncovers the dehumanizing nature of the media’s portrayal of women. The media presents impossible, and often fake, beauty standards. |
| Finding Home | Finding Home explores what’s working and not working in the foster care system, a system designed to help young people find new homes in America. |
| The Co$t Of Living | The Co$t Of Living follows four eighth graders who wanted to learn more about low-income families in New York and work on behalf of organizations supporting them. |
| Ocean’s Warming | Ocean’s Warming addresses our ever warming oceans, how they are affecting life on land, and what we can do to slow down the rising temperatures. |
| Free At Last | Free At Last follows four students exploring the problem of mass incarceration in America and how this system is connected to U.S. history. |
| Out Of My Country | Out Of My Country considers the complex topic of immigration in the U.S., how immigration laws have changed over time, and what four eighth graders learned working at “Welcome Home”, a non-profit helping refugees settle into New Jersey. |
