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.
- "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.
- 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.
Grade Levels: 1-4
- 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
- This lesson explores the importance of protecting sources of clean drinking water. Through a narrated slideshow, former Peace Corps volunteer Lauren Fry shares her story about building a springbox to protect a groundwater supply in Cameroon. Students will analyze data that Lauren collected and construct their own working model springboxes.
- 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.
- Cape Verde: Paradise Amongst the Clouds
- The Republic of Cape Verde is an island nation located about 300 miles off the western coast of Africa. Cape Verde, where the people speak Portuguese and Creole, has a long and rich history. While the people of Cape Verde enjoy warm temperatures and a beautiful setting, they must also deal with some challenges related to their climate and location. The main challenge is the lack of rainfall and limited fresh water. Students will have the opportunity to explore this country and gain an appreciation for the people who live there.
- 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 wet up learning stations and host a celebration of Water Day, leading younger students on a rotation of the stations
- Cuisine and Etiquette
- Students will examine mealtime etiquette in different countries and make inferences about other cultures from the rules governing table manners.
- 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.
- 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.
- Gallery Walk
- 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.
- Harvesting Water from Fog
- The Republic of Cape Verde is an island nation located about 300 miles off the western coast of Africa. Cape Verde, where the people speak Portuguese and Creole, has a long and rich history. While the people of Cape Verde enjoy warm temperatures and a beautiful setting, they must also deal with some challenges related to their climate and location. The main challenge is the lack of rainfall and limited fresh water. Students will become familiar with the technology and benefit of collecting water from fog.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 America our national tree is the Oak. It is a familiar tree, known for its large size, hard wood, and many uses. Oaks are not found everywhere. Each country has its own climate, soil, and trees that have adapted to living in that particular part of the world. Even in the Peace Corps Challenge there was a drought, lack of firewood, and soil erosion. The Mango tree is also a part of the farmer's garden. Trees are important to not only the villagers in Wanzuzu but also each of us. 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.
- Protecting Philippine Reefs
- As fish populations plummet, a Peace Corps Volunteer works with Filipinos to restore the sea life that the local people depend on for food. Watch slide show
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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. Using essays and photos provided by Peace Corps Volunteers, students will create a photomontage that is calculated to focus attention or alter viewers’ attitudes regarding environmental issues in the United States and Africa. While creating the photomontage, students will be challenged not to ask the question “What is this photograph of?,” but to ask, “What is the photograph about?”
- 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'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.
- Windmills and Blogs: The Impact of Technology in Rural Peru
- This lesson encourages students to explore the role of technology in society, specifically its benefits and consequences. They will do this by reflecting on the role of technology in their own community and by viewing a Peace Corps Volunteer's slide show and discussing the uses of technology—windmills and computers—in a Peruvian village.
- 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.
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