Peace Corps

• Subject(s): Language Arts & Literature, Social Studies & Geography, Environment & Health
• Grade Level(s): 6–8

Overview

As a Peace Corps Volunteer assigned to the village of Wanzuzu, students playing the Peace Corps Challenge game are faced with many challenges they must solve using realistic solutions. In this challenge, players find themselves suddenly seen as tree experts by those in the village. They must move through the village finding community members who give them advice on which tree will be most beneficial. By weighing different opinions and needs, players must recommend to the community elders a tree to plant that meets not only the needs of the community, but also keep the local ecosystem healthy.

Background Information

Factoids from the game:

Did you know that Peace Corps Volunteers around the world work with their community to develop projects that involve trees? For example, Volunteers work on production of fruit trees, natural fences for wind protection, and raising trees in small nurseries. Source: Peace Corps Agroforestry.

The United States consumes and produces about a quarter of the world's forest products, making it the world leader. Source: EPA: Forestry

Forests cover about 30 percent of the land on Earth. Source: The UN Environmental Programme

Trees play a critical role in our environment. They help to protect coastal areas and soil. Trees also aid in preventing desertification, which is the expansion of deserts due to various factors including grazing and the collection of firewood. Source: the UN Environmental Programme; USGS: Desertification

Procedures

Explore the Agroforestry WebQuest

Play the Agroforestry Challenge (Flash)

Additional Resources:

Coverdell World Wise Schools:

• WebQuest: The Growing Challenge in Senegal
• Podcast: Reasons for Joy Listen | Read
• Slideshow: When Success is Truly Sweet

Other Sources:

• United States Department of Agriculture: Agroforestry
• United States Department of Agriculture: Forest Service
• United States Forest Service, Department of Agriculture: International Programs
• Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations: Wood for Energy
• Environmental Literacy Council: Forests

Framework and Standards

Enduring Understandings

• Solutions to community challenges can often be difficult to solve, and can have a positive or negative impact on others.
• There are many factors that must be considered when choosing solutions to today's global challenges.
• All members of a community are important and their wants and needs are an essential part of maintaining a successful society.

Essential Questions

• How do we as a society weigh the pros and cons to ensure that solutions to challenges best meet the needs of those in the community?
• How do the choices we make affect others?

Standards

Social Studies:

Thematic Strand I: Culture

• How culture influences the ways in which human groups solve problems of daily living
• How people from different cultures develop different ways of interpreting experience
• Language, behaviors and beliefs can both contribute and pose barriers to cross-cultural understanding

Thematic Strand III: People, Places, and Environments

• Human modifications of the environment

Thematic Strand IX: Global Connections

• The causes and consequences of various types of global connections
• The actions of people, communities, and nations have both short and long term effects

Geography:

Essential Element V: Environment and Society

• How human actions modify the physical environment
• How physical systems affect human systems
• Changes in meanings, use, distribution, and importance of resources

Science:

Content Standard C: Life Science

• Regulation and behavior
• Populations and ecosystems

Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives

• Types of resources
• Changes in environments
• Populations, resources, and environments
• Risks and benefits
• Personal and community health
• Population growth
• Natural resources
• Environmental quality
• Natural and human-induced hazards