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Student Activity Ideas

Has your teacher assigned your class a project about a country in Africa? Or were you asked to create an environmental education project or a science project on water? Maybe you just think that the Water in Africa website is cool and want to do something with it?

Here are some ideas to get you started. If you don't have much experience using computers, start out with the Projects for All Grades. If you're an expert, jump right down to the High School Projects. If you're somewhere in the middle, try the Middle School–High School Projects.

If you'd like to use the photos on this site for a project, but don't know how to download them, click the Help button above. You will find complete directions on how to download and save them on your own computer.


Projects for All Grades

E-mail a Photo
Send friends or relatives an e-mail and attach a photo from Water in Africa. Tell them about the photo and why you like it. Don't forget to mention where you found it, so those people can see more photos for themselves.

Make Some Stationery
After you download and save a Water in Africa photo to your own computer, print it out. Use crayons or makers to draw a special frame around it. Then use that piece of paper to write a note to a friend. The picture will be in the middle of the page, so you can start your letter at the top and write around it.


Middle School–High School Projects

Make a Book About a Volunteer
Each photo was taken by a Peace Corps Volunteer who lived in Africa for two years. Find all the photos that were taken by the same person. (Hint—the ID number under the photo will have the same first four letters and numbers for one individual; for example, those with CM02 were all taken by Serena Williams.)

Download and print the photos in order to make a book about that Volunteer and the place where he or she served. You might want to download the map of the country and print it out, too. Try to find the part of the country where the Volunteer lived and mark it on the map. Add a page of interesting facts about the country. (Hint—click the Home arrow above and find the link to the country where the Volunteer served. Look on the country page for links to a fact file and maps of the country.)

Find all the stories that your particular Volunteer wrote for the Water in Africa website and pick out interesting comments about his or her experience in Africa. Include the comments next to the photos. Share your finished book with your friends, and take it to your local library and show the librarian.

Create a Poster
Click on the Resources button above and find the link to the diagrams. Download some of the diagrams and print them out. Then go to the photo resources and find photos that show the type of object drawn in the diagram. Download and print them out, too. Create an informative poster that illustrates your findings. Label all of the photos and diagrams. Be sure to give credit to the photographers and artists. Hang your poster in a prominent place.


High School Projects

Make a PowerPoint Presentation
If you have PowerPoint on your computer, you can insert photos and text from Water in Africa and customize a presentation of your own collection of photos. First, choose a theme for your presentation. For example, you might want to show different types of wells or water containers in Africa, or you may want to illustrate the women's jobs that relate to water.

Next, download all the photos and Web pages that you want to use in your presentation and put them into a file on your computer. Open up PowerPoint and choose New from the File menu. If you have the option to choose a design template, your presentation will be easier to create. Choose one that has a neutral background, or is a very light color so that the color of the photos will stand out. If you are going to include diagrams, be sure that your background color is light enough so the diagrams can easily be read. To insert a photo, choose "Picture from file" from the Insert menu. Find the file on your computer that holds the photos you downloaded and choose one of the photos and press Return. The photo will be inserted on the page of PowerPoint. You can give the page a title, move the photo around as you wish, and place text around it. Experiment with PowerPoint to add transitions and animation. Share your completed presentation with your classmates and your family.

Create a Collage of Words and Phrases
While reading the stories written by the Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa, you may have found some statements worth remembering. Or perhaps there was one theme running through the anecdotes that you thought was particularly significant. You can use the "Word Art" option of your word processing program or a graphics program such as Paint to create a document that illustrates those thoughts. First, choose short sentences or phrases. Clip and copy them from your browser into a new word-processing document. Choose "Word Art" from your word-processing program, or open up a graphics program. Design your document using styles, shapes, and colors that complement the phrases. Print it on a color printer or add it to a PowerPoint presentation. Click here to see a
sample Word Art document.