Africa
Lessons address the firsthand stories, letters, folk tales, photographs, and in-depth study units that focus on Peace Corps Volunteer experiences across Africa.
- "Declaration (of a Kgomotso Girl)"
- Students will read and discuss "Declaration," a poem written by a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in South Africa. Students will focus reading and discussion on issues of gender as they appear in the poem.
- "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.
- A Lifetime of Service
- 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.
- A Morning of Weighing Babies
- Students will explore literary characters and their relationships to an author and to each other.
- A South African Storm
- The writer confronts issues of racial prejudice that she encounters in South Africa, years after the abolition there of the official policy of apartheid.
- A Togolese Tale: The Big Fire
- Students will examine the universal nature of folk tales and evaluate the meaning of a tale told in Togo.
- Africa Colors a Destiny
- In this lesson, students learn about culture in Chad through the eyes of two Peace Corps Volunteers: Michael Varga, who served in Chad from 1977-1979, and Fan Yang, who served there almost thirty years later, in 2005-2006. Both Volunteers were evacuated due to civil war. Students will watch a slide show and examine primary sources–letters sent home from Michael Varga during his service–to learn about the geography and culture of Chad, as well as how his Peace Corps experience shaped his future. Then students will study photographs and stories from Fan Yang's time in Chad to compare the two Volunteers' experiences.
- Angel
- Students get to meet a victim of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa and see personally how it affects her, her community, and the author, who meets and befriends her.
- 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 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- Cross-Cultural Dialogue Lesson
- Students will strive to view situations from more than their own point of view.
- 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.
- Discovering New Perspectives on Life
- Students examine how the author's worldview expanded by living in another culture.
- Discussion Questions for Amber Bechtel’s Essay on AIDS in South Africa
- How can traditional healers help alleviate South Africa’s HIV/AIDS crisis? Peace Corps Volunteer Amber Bechtel takes a look at traditional medicine’s role alongside new treatments for HIV/AIDS.
- Do You Really Know What Wealth Is?
- Students will examine what it means to have wealth—a concept that turns out to be philosophical as well as economic—and examine the importance of music.
- Examining What Sharing Really Means
- Students examine the remarkable degree of sharing that the author encounters upon arrival in Africa.
- 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
- Fog's Bounty
- In this lesson, students travel to the island nation of Cape Verde where they are introduced to Peace Corps Volunteer Nathan Lee and his work of harvesting water from fog. Students will learn how fog is produced, why it is a viable source of fresh water, and how it is harvested.
- Healthy Girls, Healthy Villages
- This lesson explores the importance of educating girls in developing countries, as well as some of the factors that traditionally limit girls’ access to education. Through a narrated slide show, returned Peace Corps Volunteer Vivian Nguyen explains the challenges facing girls in Niger, and how a program called Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) helps provide education and life skills to prepare girls for a healthier future. Students will investigate the problems of poverty, nutrition, and health that disproportionately affect women and girls in developing countries. They will then create educational skits or games to be included in the Camp GLOW program.
- Ilunga's Harvest Lesson
- Students examine the culturally based impulse to share with others versus the impulse to watch out for oneself or one's immediate family.
- Modeling Our Writing After Another Author's Style
- Students will emulate the author's descriptive phrases in their own writing.
- 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.
- Nomadic Life Lesson
- Students will examine the imagery in a rich, spare poem about an interlude between two women of different cultures in rural Niger.
- On Sunday There Might Be Americans Lesson
- Students will gain insight into the mindset of a rural boy in Niger, specifically regarding his relations with both indigenous and foreign people in the local market.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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—Soil Runoff
- When the ground is saturated or impermeable to water during heavy rains or snow melt, excess water flows over the surface of the land until it eventually collects in low spots such as ponds, rivers or lakes. This is called runoff. Students will explore several ways in which the lake at Wanzuzu can be protected from further soil run-off and how as a Peace Corps Volunteer they could help their community. The following teacher suggestions are designed to enhance the students learning while focusing on one of the challenges (soil runoff) addressed in the Peace Corps Challenge on-line game.
- Playing in Lesotho
- Children everywhere play. American students will have the opportunity to see how resourceful children are in the country of Lesotho when it comes to finding things to play with. Imagination can transform a simple item into the best toy ever.
- Recognizing How Another Culture Differs From One's Own
- Students will discover how the concepts of time and punctuality can differ markedly in the United States and another country.
- Seeing Things From the Someone Else's Point of View
- Students will examine the cultural trait of sharing, trying to view it from the point of view of someone in another culture.
- Seeing the World in New Ways
- Students will probe their own histories to record how they have had to expand their worldviews.
- 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.
- The Death of Old Woman Kelema
- Students will investigate methods for using imagery in literature to convey the sights and sounds of another culture. Students will compare elements of another culture to their own.
- 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 Talking Goat Lesson
- Students will analyze the meanings and patterns of a folk tale.
- 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.
- Two Very Different Concepts of Time
- Students will delve further into the differences between a time-bound culture and a culture in which time seems almost unimportant.
- Using Effective, Evocative Writing as a Model
- Students will analzye the author's style to learn techniques for strengthening their own writing.
- Using a Mentor Text to Develop a New Style of Writing
- Students will examine some of the author's writing traits and then make an effort to incorporate his style into their own writing.
- Using an Author's Clever Strategies in One's Own Writing
- Students will examine specific clever strategies of the author and incorporate them in their own writings.
- 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.
- Water: A Source of Life and Culture
- Students will use primary and secondary sources to research water as a feature of culture. Using text and photos from Peace Corps Volunteers serving in various African countries, students will uncover the role water plays in shaping daily life. Students will analyze the material and create symbols that summarize their findings. Symbols will be collected and arranged to make a contemporary work of art.
- Water: Narrative vs. Expository Texts
- Many students, especially students with limited English language skills, have difficulties determining the difference between narrative and expository texts. This unit will use vignettes written by Peace Corps Volunteers serving in Lesotho and Madagascar to compare these types of texts. As final products, students will write both a narrative essay and an expository essay. This unit was piloted with high school second language learners.
- 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.
- WebQuest: The Growing Challenge in Senegal
- In this science-based WebQuest, students explore the issue of soil fertility and its impact on agriculture. Working in teams, students take the role of Senegalese farming families who must design an optimal rotation for their crops in declining soil conditions. After viewing the video "The Growing Challenge in Senegal," students conduct guided web-based research on soil fertility and agriculture. Students use the information they have collected to design a strategic 3-year plan for planting their fields.
- WebQuest: Eradicating Guinea Worm Disease in Ghana
- Students engage in a WebQuest, gathering information about the causes and effects of Guinea worm disease, a waterborne illness affecting several countries in Africa. A central source of information is a podcast featuring Peace Corps Volunteer Peter DiCampo, who served as a Health, Water, and Sanitation Volunteer in Ghana. Students take the roles of Peace Corps Volunteers, applying their knowledge of the Guinea worm life cycle to create a plan for eradicating the disease. They create public service announcements (PSAs) for radio broadcast to communicate their plans. Finally, students evaluate their solutions and compare them to actual strategies that have proven effective in combating the disease.
- WebQuest: The Malaria Challenge
- In this interactive WebQuest, students explore the global issue of malaria and take the role of a Peace Corps Volunteer working to prevent the spread of the disease. Students analyze data and use their knowledge of life cycles to consider prevention strategies. Next, they play The Peace Corps Challenge game, proposing solutions to a malaria outbreak in the virtual village of Wanzuzu. Finally, students learn about a real-world example of a malaria prevention initiative in Senegal, and reflect on the global significance of effective prevention strategies.
- WebQuest: Water, Sanitation & Health
- Students will use Water in Africa resources, and additional internet resources, to complete a WebQuest about water issues in Africa. The WebQuest incorporates skills in geography, analysis, and information literacy. Students will begin with the story of a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon to examine a water problem and solution in one community, and then will use other Peace Corps stories and internet resources to conduct research. Students will learn about reasons why some areas have limited access to clean water, the effect this has on communities, and some strategies for addressing these problems. They will work in teams to complete the WebQuest, research a particular country, and prepare for a World Water Summit meeting to address water problems in Africa.
- What Sharing Really Means
- Students will examine closely the meaning of generosity and how sharing can be a cultural trait.
- Where Life Is Too Short
- Students will come away from this lesson beginning to understand the impact and implications of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa and beyond.
- 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.
- You Can Dream; Stories of Moroccan Women Who Do
This lesson is designed to support exploration of the issue of gender equality and traditional gender roles. By viewing the introductory slideshow and using class discussion questions which accompany the 25 minute video “ You Can Dream; Stories of Moroccan Women Who Do ,” students travel to the fascinating country of Morocco and learn first-hand how several Moroccan women are transforming not only their own lives, but their entire community by becoming role models and ensuring equal opportunities are available for all. By engaging students in the discussion questions, students are given the opportunity to share their own thoughts on this global issue and offer personal insight into how the experiences highlighted in the film can be used to overcome gender inequality worldwide.
- “Mosetsana”
- Students will read and discuss "Mosetsana," a poem written by a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in South Africa. Students will focus reading and discussion on issues of gender, education, and family as they appear in the poem.