THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS AND JAPAN: The current economic crisis effects the lives of students throughout the country, and is an important topic to teach.  Unfortunately, this issue is also extremely complex, and there is a great need for resources both explaining the roots of the crisis and providing materials and ideas of how to teach about it in the K-12 classroom.  The (growing) list of materials collected under this theme is an attempt to help provide some tools, through background lectures as well as classroom materials and teaching ideas, to help teach children about the economic crisis in a global context.  The focus is on the role of Japan within this global period of economic change, but many of the materials are applicable to teaching about both the crisis and a variety of other themes and issues more broadly.   This theme provides an excellent opportunity to teach students about the interconnected nature of today’s world, and in particular, it provides a particularly apt teaching opportunity to teach concretely about how the seemingly distant worlds of the financial and political centers of Tokyo, New York, and Washington impact the students in your classroom.  Included in this theme are videocasts of experts theorizing about the causes, links to relevant articles in Japanese and American newspapers, teaching ideas, and more.