Happy New Year from Coverdell World Wise Schools! To kick off 2010, we are highlighting wonderful new resources available on our website. We hope you’ll take a minute to browse through these resources and find a Peace Corps story that will bring the world to your students.

Several new videos and slideshows focus on global issues, featuring Volunteers addressing environmental concerns around the world, from Cape Verde to Palau. Lesson plans provide an interdisciplinary approach to real-world problems: students can practice math skills while learning about endangered sea turtles, explore scientific solutions to water problems, and connect local issues to global ones through service learning.

Our Water in Africa site has long been a treasure trove of resources, including photographs, stories, and maps. Now we have made it even more useful for younger grade levels, with adaptations of lesson plans for K-4 students. We have also added a number of teaching suggestions and resources to enhance the interactive Peace Corps Challenge game.

Check out our new world language resource page, which makes it easy to bring authentic cultural resources to your students’ language study. It features podcasts recorded in French and Spanish, as well as stories and folktales translated into Mandarin Chinese, French (from Haiti, Guinea, and Niger), and Spanish (from Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Peru). Students can also watch videos with host country nationals speaking in their native languages.

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Q: In what ways (if at all) is the New Year celebrated in your country of service?

A: Other than the most common celebration of eating a meal with family and friends, then going outside to watch fireworks, Ecuador's coastal region around Guayaquil has a tradition of burning away the old year.

Its European historical pagan counterpart, jumping over the flames of the community fire, is embodied by the burning of muñecas, colorfully painted papier mâché statues. Originally, the old year, El Viejo, used to be represented by the form of a man, comprised of clothing stuffed with sawdust and topped by a papier mâché head.

Today, though, this traditional effigy has become a work of art...

Sabriga Turgon, Health and Nutrition Peace Corps Volunteer, Ecuador

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