The World News Crossword - May 13th, 2018

The World News Crossword - May 13th, 2018 is a simple PDF document that contains:

1. A crossword based on the events of last week’s news,
2. A Search & Cloze puzzle that explains the plastic pollution problem,
3. A Search & Cloze puzzle that explains the Rohingya Crisis, and
4. A crossword about Climate Change.
   (The answers are included.)

So what happened in last week’s news?

Rohingya refugees were killed by wild elephants in the refugee camps in Bangladesh. The US-imposed tariffs on imported Canadian newsprint has raised the cost of US newspapers’ newsprint. A Pakistan court ruled that a US diplomat who allegedly killed a motorcyclist while driving drunk does not have diplomatic immunity. Iraq and East Timor held elections. Moldova’s government ruled out reunification talks with Romania. Poland’s government cut its politicians’ salaries and Zimbabwe’s government raised the pensions and salaries of war veterans and government workers. Israel won the Eurovision song contest, the sea off San Diego glowed blue, and India’s prime minister opened a hydro-electric construction project in Nepal.

But it’s less about what happened and more about why. Why are a million Rohingya people living in squalid refugee camps in Bangladesh? Why did US air force planes intercept Russian bombers of the Alaskan coast and why did Chinese air force planes fly around Taiwan? Why is the US president meeting the North Korean leader? Why did Malaysia elect a 92 year old prime minister? Why are Africans still dying of hunger and Ebola?

These puzzles are a simple and effective teaching tool for research skills (finally, they can use their smart-phones for something useful), for collaborative learning (because these puzzles work really well when students work in pairs or small groups), for reasoning skills and handwriting skills… We’ve had positive feedback from teachers using the puzzles with ADHD students and with GATE students, in PSHE / homeroom lessons, in English, Economics, Geography, Business… (some teachers even say they make staff meetings bearable - cheeky, eh?)

A new World News Crossword resource is published every week.