Grades 3–5
Discover lesson plans that accompany stories, letters, and folk tales for young children that bring to life cultural, social, and environmental issues in countries the world over.
- Making Service Count
- Students reflect on the importance of community service by reading stories about Peace Corps Volunteer experiences. Students then articulate needs within their own communities and participate in a gallery walk to generate ideas about how to address those needs through service.
- "Oh, Kingdom in the Sky"
- With a decades-long nursing career to her credit, Mary Ann Camp was a hero before she became a Peace Corps Volunteer. Still, while many Americans her age considered retirement, Peace Corps service for Mary Ann meant three tours—in Lesotho, Malawi, and Botswana—tackling health, agriculture, and education problems with her host communities.
- Asha's Village
- Asha, a young girl living in India, takes the reader on a virtual journey through her village. She offers a glimpse into aspects of her culture and daily life while introducing a variety of words in Hindi. By seeing components of a village in India, students can compare and contrast daily life in India with their own. In doing so, they can see that although people may have differences in country of origin, foods, or language, we are more alike than different.
- Barrels and Buckets: Access to Water
- Students increase their understanding of access to water through reading Peace Corps Volunteer stories from Kenya (in east Africa) and Ghana (in west Africa). As part of this lesson, each student will make a book that compares access to water in the United States, Kenya, and Ghana. An overall goal is to develop the students' understanding of the similarities and differences among water use in Kenya, Ghana, and the students' own communities.
- Bringing Water to a Village in Lesotho
- In this lesson, students will learn about the role of water in ceremonies and celebrations around the world, as well as about the role water plays in the daily lives of those living in Lesotho.
- Building Bridges for Young Learners—Community
- The following lesson engages young children in ideas and concepts surrounding community with an exploration of the varied factors that influence how people live, the roles of adults and children, and the interaction of people who live and work within a community.
- Building Bridges for Young Learners—Culture
- This culminating lesson engages young children in exploring the macro concept of culture, including identifying visible and invisible features of culture, how interaction with the environment and others shapes one's culture, and how culture is shared and transformed over time.
- Building Bridges for Young Learners—Family
- The following lesson engages young children in exploring the concept of family with emphasis on how families around the world share more commonalities than differences.
- Building Bridges for Young Learners—School
- The following lesson engages young children in exploring the concept of school and education with an exploration of the varied factors that influence children's access to formal schooling, the subjects taught and learned, and children's role in their classroom.
- Building Bridges for Young Learners—Self
- Students will examine themselves relative to their characteristics, abilities, and feelings. By making connections to children in another part of the world, they will discover that people are more alike than different.
- Building a Model Springbox
- Inspired by the slide show "Water Source Protection," featuring Peace Corps Volunteer Lauren Fry, students will take the role of environmental engineers. They will use simple materials to construct small-scale springboxes and make recommendations for improving their functionality.
- Building a Solar Still
- In this lesson, students explore the water cycle and the role it can play in making water drinkable. Through an online video, Peace Corps Volunteers Nicholas Hanson and Brian Newhouse describe how they built a solar still to distill saltwater into drinkable water in Cape Verde. During the first class period, students construct their own model solar stills. In the second class period, they check to see how much pure water their solar stills produced from a supply of saltwater.
- Celebrating Our Connections Through Water
- In this unit, students will reflect on the role of water in ceremonies and celebrations around the world. Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) vignettes will provide the basis for researching and collecting data to be organized into a class celebrations chart. As a culminating activity, students will set up learning stations and host a celebration of Water Day, leading younger students on a rotation of the stations
- China by the Numbers
ESOL language proficiency level: advanced
In reference to China's burgeoning population, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Matthew Scranton ponders the question, "Can you conceive of 1.3 billion anything? In this lesson, students will learn about place value, exponents and how there's a number amount for everything.
- Clean Water and
Quality of Life - This lesson explores the importance of protecting sources of clean drinking water. Through a narrated slide show, Peace Corps volunteer Lauren Fry shares her story about building a springbox to protect a groundwater supply in Cameroon. Students will synthesize information from the slide show, examine additional photographs depicting water access issues in Africa, and discuss the connection between clean water and quality of life. After discussing Lauren's story, choose from the suggested math and science activities to extend students' learning.
- Communities Around the World
- Where we live helps shape who we are. By examining the concept of community and its importance in our lives, students will gain an appreciation for their own community while gaining respect for communities that may be very different than their own. They will also explore their role within the community around them.
- Community Health Data Analysis
- Students will view the slide show "Water Source Protection", featuring Peace Corps Volunteer Lauren Fry. They will then examine the community health data she collected and explore the question: Do the data provide evidence that the springbox may have helped to improve the community's health?
- Cuisine and Etiquette
- Students will examine mealtime etiquette in different countries and make inferences about other cultures from the rules governing table manners.
- Cultures Around the World
- Our own culture is all around us and has helped to shape who we are, what we enjoy, and our social norms. Our encounters with those of a different culture are excellent opportunities to celebrate our diversity while appreciating our own culture. Students will compare and contrast cultures of the world celebrating their differences and similarities.
- Day-to-Day Life in a Small African Village
- Students will learn about and experience just a bit of what it's like living in a village in Tanzania—from language to geography to health and hygiene issues.
- Enough to Make Your Head Spin
- Students will learn to appreciate the value of nonverbal communication, focusing on the shaking or nodding of one's head, and the meanings attached to each activity in Bulgaria and in the United States.
- Everyone Has a Culture—Everyone Is Different
- Students will distinguish between what constitutes culture and what makes up personal individuality.
- Explore More About Bottle Construction
- Many Peace Corps Volunteers collaborate with their host communities to make the best use of locally available materials. Explore the stories from Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Guatemala and collaborated with community members on bottle construction projects. Then extend students' learning from these stories using the accompanying teaching suggestions.
- Families Around the World
- The concept of family and it importance in our lives is something that is shared by people of every culture. By looking more closely at photos and simple text describing the roles we each play in our families, students will gain an understanding of the similarities shared by families around the world.
- Fighting Soil Erosion
This lesson is divided into two parts.
The first section is intended for classes that are being introduced to the topic of soil erosion. This section consists of a variety of activities developed by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the National Geographic Society. These activities will help develop a foundational understanding of soil erosion.
The second section allows the students to explore the issue of soil erosion in Guinea through a narrated slide show. Steve Jacobson, a former Peace Corps Volunteer, shares his experience and the different strategies Guineans are using to address soil erosion. Watch slide show
- First Impressions
- Students will experience the risks of making assumptions from first impressions.
- Food Culture Photo Essays
- After viewing a slide show from a Peace Corps Volunteer in China, students will use Peace Corps' Mandarin Chinese language lessons to develop their own food culture photo essay.
- Hurricane
- Students will learn about the nature of hurricanes: climate conditions, geographic factors and effects on human systems. With repetitive readings of the story, students will also gain reading fluency, use of context clues and practice flow of supporting details. The effect of Hurricane Georges upon the Dominican Republic will be examined.
- International Curiosity and National Pride
- Students will look at their own culture and at Bulgarian culture to identify national, local, or ethnic traits, while at the same time attempting not to over-generalize about any particular group of people.
- Just Like the Old Days
- Students will examine and experience roles and customs of rural Mongolians through role-playing, and they will compare unfamiliar roles from Mongolia with everyday roles in the United States.
- Linking Geography and Food
- Students will explore the ways that physical and human geography can contribute to the food culture of another world region.
- Narrative Cartoons
- Based on essays and photos provided by Peace Corps Volunteers, students will create a narrative cartoon, a set of sequentially placed images that tell a story.
- Narrative Cartoons
- Young people are drawn to reading and drawing comic strips, but many young people define and restrict comic strips to pictorial images of super heroes. This lesson is designed to draw upon the interest that young people have in cartoons, and at the same time introduce students to techniques of creating alternative styles. Based on essays and photos provided by Peace Corps Volunteers, students will create a narrative cartoon, a set of sequentially placed images that tell a story. The narrative comic strip may depict one activity or be a collage of various activities. See samples of the student artwork from this lesson created by students from Roberto Clemente Community Academy in Chicago.
- One Step at a Time
- Students will see that it is crucial to understand the perspectives of another culture if one is trying to work within that other culture to effect change.
- Opposites
- Students will see how personal tastes and experiences—in addition to culture—influence our perspectives.
- Overseas Phone Call from Bolivia
- For many ESOL students, deciphering and extracting information without visual cues is a challenging task. With this directed listening activity, students will use "previewing" strategies to better comprehend and learn about the experience of Peace Corps Volunteer Joe Stevens: his likes, dislikes, types of animals in Bolivia, food and sports. Students will also be able to locate Bolivia on a map and use a topographical map and clues to estimate Joe's location in the country.
- Overseas Phone Call from Costa Rica
- For many ESOL students, deciphering and extracting information without visual cues is a challenging task. With this directed listening activity, students will use "previewing" strategies to better comprehend and learn about the experience of a Peace Corps Volunteer: likes, dislikes, types of animals, festivals, language, food and sports may be discussed. Students will also be able to locate the country on a map.
- Overseas Phone Call from Morocco
- For many ESOL students, deciphering and extracting information without visual cues is a challenging task. With this directed listening activity, students will use "previewing" strategies to better comprehend and learn about the experience of Peace Corps Volunteer Jessica and the country of Morocco: types of animals, a typical school day, types of work and holidays. Students will also compare and contrast Morocco with the United States and locate Morocco and two major cities on a map.
- Overseas Phone Call from Turkmenistan
- For many ESOL students, deciphering and extracting information without visual cues is a challenging task. With this directed listening activity, students will use "previewing" strategies to better comprehend and learn about the experience of a Peace Corps Volunteer: likes, dislikes, types of animals, festivals, language, food and sports may be discussed. Students will also be able to locate the country on a map.
- Peace Corps Challenge Game—Traditional Greetings
- The world if full of different cultures with different traditions, languages, customs, and greetings. Students will explore several ways in which people around the world greet each other. The following teacher suggestion is designed to enhance the students learning from playing the Peace Corps Challenge on-line game.
- Peace Corps Challenge Game—Water Quality
- The water pollution of the lake in the village of Wanzuzu has affected much more than just the lives of the humans in the village. Animals and plants have also been affected. Through letter writing students will have the opportunity to express their feelings by writing as if they were a fish in the lake and also understand that sometimes we all must work together to solve a community problem.
- Peace Corps Challenge Game—Foods from Other Countries
- Not everyone in the world eats at fast food restaurants, or even has the same vegetables as we do in America. When people think of a traditional "American" type of food, they usually say hamburgers and hot dogs. In most countries they have a popular dish. In fact, in the Peace Corps Challenge game they drank root juice and ate fried ants. Students will have the opportunity to learn about some of the traditional dishes from other countries of the world. The following teacher suggestion is designed to enhance the students learning from playing the Peace Corps Challenge on-line game.
- Peace Corps Challenge Game—National Trees
- Trees are found all over the world, in every country. Although trees are common to all parts of the world, there are different trees species found in different places. In this teaching suggestion, students will have the opportunity to explore the national trees of several countries as well as compare them to some of the native trees in their own community.
- Population and Agriculture
- Students will use information from Peace Corps Volunteer Amy Throndsen's slide show about her experience in China, as a springboard for investigating numerical relationships between population and agriculture.
- Quak-wah-tania and Her Sisters
ESOL language proficiency levels: beginner, intermediate
Students will appreciate folk tales as a universal genre with similar elements and life lesson to be learned, no matter the culture or country of origin. They will also practice reading fluency by starting with increased background knowledge and repetitive readings in interactive formats.
- Reef Results, Problem-Solving and Solutions
- As fish populations plummet, Peace Corps Volunteer Tommy Schultz works with Filipinos to restore the sea life that the local people depend on for food. After watching the slide show, Protecting Philippine Reefs, students will recognize how intertwined human existence is with the health of ecosystems, identifying positive and negative impacts that people can have on their local environment. They will also practice reading fluency and new vocabulary in sentence construction and writing.
- Respect for Authority
- Students will examine just how a Peace Corps Volunteer working in a culture steeped in subordination encourages local young people to challenge authority and participate in their governance.
- Schools Around the World
- As each of us goes to school, it quickly becomes one of the most important parts of our lives. Although schools are found in every corner of the world, they can be quite different. Learning about schools and schooling around the world can help students understand not only the importance of education, but also how children of every culture have many of the same needs.
- Service Learning
- Ideas for using Coverdell World Wise Schools resources to enhance the pre-service, service, and post-service stages of the service learning process.
- Soneka's Village
- Students will focus on aspects of the Maasai pastoralist culture and compare it with their own.
- Splish-Splash: Daily Use of Water
- This lesson facilitates the students’ understanding of access to water through reading stories from Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Kenya (east Africa region) and Ghana (west Africa region). As part of this lesson, each student will make a book that compares access to water in the United States, Kenya, and Ghana. An overall goal is to develop the students’ understanding of the similarities and differences between water use by people in Kenya and Ghana and their own communities.
- Starting Your Own Small Business
- Students learn about a small poultry business project that Peace Corps Volunteer Brian Lewandowski began with youth in the Caribbean nation of St. Vincent. After viewing the slideshow Raising Chickens, Empowering Youth, students engage in a math investigation in which they plan their own fictional poultry businesses.
- Taking Action!
- Students will read the story Happy Hearts in Manabí by Peace Corps Volunteer Kristen Mallory. After learning about Kristen's work promoting heart health in Ecuador, students will consider how educating others can be a form of service, prioritize health education issues in their own communities, and create educational materials for a local audience. As an extension of this lesson, students may organize a health education event within their school or local community.
- Terrace Agriculture and Soil Erosion
- By viewing slide shows from Peace Corps Volunteers who served in China and Africa, students will explore the practice of terrace agriculture around the world and its effectiveness in maximizing space while minimizing soil erosion.
- The Blind Men and the Elephant
- Students will examine the importance of perspective in how people perceive things.
- The Flow of Women’s Work
- Water provides an excellent lens for studying gender roles. In this lesson, students compare the division of labor in water-related work in rural Lesotho with their own households. By doing this, they will gain an understanding of the multiple factors that influence how gender roles are established in different societies. This lesson culminates with students writing letters in the voice of visitors to the United States from Lesotho.
- The Iceberg
- Students will identify features that all cultures share and decide which are visible and which are invisible.
- The Multicultural Person
- Students will learn that they belong to many groups, depending on the criteria they choose to determine the groupings.
- This Is Tanzania
- Students will come away with an introductory knowledge of the volcanic history and wildlife of Tanzania, and of the subsistence agricultural economy with which most Tanzanians live.
- To Your Health
- Students will focus on how storks and other cultural icons, in both Bulgarian and American customs, are believed to encourage and bring good health.
- Visual Messages: Creating a Photomontage
- How do we best communicate a rich and complex visual world when it is captured on a two-dimensional surface? In this lesson, students will manipulate photographs by cutting, reassembling, and adding two-dimensional materials, such as text, maps, charts, documents, notes, and drawings.
- Wall of Water: Tsunami!
- Students will learn what a tsunami is, what causes it, how fast it travels, what it looks like, its devastating effects upon landfall, where it occurs and why it occurs in certain geographic regions. The effect of a 2004 tsunami on the island nation of Sri Lanka will be closely examined.
- Water Availability and Usage
- Students will view the slide show "Water Source Protection" featuring Peace Corps Volunteer Lauren Fry. They will then explore the numerical relationships between water supply (gallons of water filtered per day) and demand (gallons of water needed by the community).
- Water Uses and Children’s Lives in East Africa
- This lesson uses students’ interactions with water to help them compare their lives with those of children in Kenya or Tanzania. It looks at ways that access to water helps define children’s roles in the family, and how this relates to culture. Students write essays and draw pictures to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts.
- Water in Africa
- Water in Africa reflects the deep connection of water to all aspects of life in African countries, a concept Coverdell World Wise Schools has captured in the learning units featured on this site. Ninety Peace Corps Volunteers contributed firsthand accounts and photographs to the lessons and activities you will find.
- Weather and Water in Ghana
- This lesson uses the dramatic contrast between the rainy and dry seasons in west Africa to help students learn about weather. Students will define weather, examine its features, define their area's weather, and apply this knowledge to their study of the ways weather affects people and the environment.
- What Can Food Tell Us About a Place?
- Cuisine, agricultural practices, markets, and mealtime traditions can reveal a great deal about people and place. As they experience life in another country, Peace Corps Volunteers' daily experiences with food can provide important insights to the culture and history of the communities in which they live and serve.
- What's Mongolia Really Like?
- Students will look at rural Mongolian nomadic culture through the eyes of a Peace Corps Volunteer and examine the dynamics of a people in transition.
- Who Are You?
- Each of us has unique characteristics that make us not only look different from one another, but also act differently. These characteristics include our likes and dislikes, as well as our talents and abilities. These characteristics can help children understand that we each have worth and are a vital part of our world. Students will also see that although we are different, there are also many things that make us similar.
- Working With Environmental Issues
- Students will learn to appreciate the importance of clean water for the maintenance of good health, and how the lack of clean water leads to the spread of disease and parasites in West Africa.