Arts & Music
Explore art and music by accessing firsthand accounts of Peace Corps Volunteers in the field, which are accompanied by activity-based lesson plans.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- Serious Doodling
- Students examine cartoons drawn by a Volunteer serving in the country of Jordan.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- When a Country Loses Its Songs
- Students will read a Peace Corps Volunteer’s account of how she helped to restore children’s music to a culture that had almost eradicated it. They will then discuss the meaning of music in their own lives and culture and investigate the importance of music in others’ lives.