Health
Through the eyes of Peace Corps Volunteers, students will become familiar with environmental issues—from clear-cutting to erosion—and health issues, including HIV/AIDS, malaria, and the basic need to obtain potable water.
- 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.
- Agroforestry Challenge
- Enhance the experiences from the agroforestry challenge of the Peace Corps Challenge game with additional resources from World Wise Schools.
- All About HIV and AIDS
- Students will investigate what HIV/AIDS is, how it is caused, how it is transmitted, and what its effects are. ("HIV" stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. "AIDS" stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.)
- Barren Fields
- Enhance the experiences from the barren fields challenge of the Peace Corps Challenge game with lesson plans and additional resources from World Wise Schools.
- Breaching the Gulf Between Cultures
- Students delve further into the dynamics, the challenges, and the rewards of adjusting to a new culture, as illustrated by the author's account of his father's coming to terms with Sri Lankan customs.
- 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.
- Confronting Two Challenges—One Physical, One Intellectual
- Students will examine how the author confronted the challenges of a new language and a new 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.
- Educating Village Girls
- Enhance the experiences from the educating village girls challenge of the Peace Corps Challenge game with lesson plans and additional resources from World Wise Schools.
- Encountering Very Different Ways of Life
- In a captivating and amusing account, the author shows just how challenging it is for someone to move from a familiar to an unfamiliar culture and then deal with adjusting to the new environment.
- 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
- I Had a Hero Lesson
- Students examine what it takes to make a hero.
- Malaria Challenge
- Enhance the experiences from the barren fields challenge of the Peace Corps Challenge game with additional resources from World Wise Schools.
- 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.
- 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—Solving the Water Quality Issue
- Newspapers are one of the main sources of information about our local and world events. Students will create a Wanzuzu newspaper about the important issues the Wanzuzu people are facing due to their polluted lake.
- 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
- Reduce, Re-use, Recycle
- The importance of recycling to reduce waste, to employ trash in useful ways, and to save the environment all feature in students' review of this letter from Romania.
- Sanitation and Disease Challenge
- Enhance the experiences from the sanitation and disease challenge of the Peace Corps Challenge game with lesson plans and additional resources from World Wise Schools.
- Searching for Meanings Beneath the Surface of the Poem
- Students will examine the poem and compare perspectives of the author and the subjects of his poem.
- Sleuthing a Writer's Skills
- Students will closely examine the author's lively text to determine how she achieved her many literary effects.
- Soil Runoff Challenge
- Enhance the experiences from the soil runoff challenge of the Peace Corps Challenge game with lesson plans and additional resources from World Wise Schools.
- 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 True Cost of Coffee
- Students will examine the economic, health, and environmental risks of a one-crop economy in the developing world.
- Tsunami! Examining Earth’s Most Destructive Waves
- Students will investigate just what a tsunami is, what causes it, how fast it travels, what it looks like, and its devastating effects upon landfall.
- Understanding and Avoiding HIV/AIDS
- Students will investigate what HIV/AIDS is, how it is caused, the effects of the disease, and how to prevent it. ("HIV" stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. "AIDS" stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.)
- Using Effective, Amusing Writing As a Model
- Students will use the author's writing as a model to achieve vivid description and engaging humor in compositions of their own.
- 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.
- Water Contamination Challenge
- Enhance the experiences from the water contamination challenge from the Peace Corps Challenge game with lesson plans and additional resources from World Wise Schools.
- 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.
- 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.
- Where There's Smoke
- Students examine how people can effectively bring about positive change in another culture, focusing on the introduction of ventilated stoves in Nepali homes.
- 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.