Center for Latin American Studies

This guide explores how to use clips from the film Urbanized in the classroom. This guide explores the Latin American content in the film, and the relevance of the film to social studies and language classrooms with a global component. 

Urbanized in the Classroom

1. Clips in the film are short, discrete, and accessible, which is ideal for classroom use.
2. The film discusses participatory urban design, which directly relates to participatory classrooms and student-centered pedagogy.
3. The study of cities is inherently interdisciplinary (brings together STEM fields, social studies, language, art, etc.).
4. The film touches on concepts that relate to multiple content areas: community, democracy, sustainability, our experience of place/space, and the importance of design and art to everyday life.

Urbanized and Teaching Latin America

1. Useful for engaging student interest in vocabulary units in Spanish related to transit/cities, housing, development, or sustainability.
2. Deals with crucial social, economic, and political issues in Latin American Cities.
3. Helpful for connecting issues faced in Latin American cities to student experiences in their own cities. Fosters global connections and consciousness.
4. Provides a different view of Latin America through:   Focusing on cities; Discussing cutting edge ways Latin America is addressing urban development challenges, (disrupting developed/developing binary models); Showing how cities in the Americas (and the world) are connected
5. The film discusses participatory urban design, which directly relates to participatory classrooms and student-centered pedagogy.
6. The study of cities is inherently interdisciplinary (brings together STEM fields, social studies, language, art, etc.).
7. The film touches on concepts that relate to multiple content areas: community, democracy, sustainability, our experience of place/space, and the importance of design and art to everyday life.