December 28, 2001 - World Wise Schools: Teaching Resources for Water in Africa

Peace Corps Online: Peace Corps News: Library: Peace Corps: The Third Goal : The Peace Corps and the Third Goal: December 28, 2001 - World Wise Schools: Teaching Resources for Water in Africa

By Admin1 (admin) on Saturday, December 29, 2001 - 8:10 am: Edit Post

Teaching Resources for Water in Africa





Read and comment on this collection of teaching resources on Water in Africa whose design and implementation included the collection of resources from over 90 Volunteers serving in African countries, the preparation of photos and stories, and the creation of standards-based learning units for K-12 students at:

Teaching Resources for Water in Africa*

* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.



Khoto, Pula, Nala!

Peace, Rain, Prosperity! This national motto of Lesotho and greeting used by the Basotho is an appropriate way to welcome you, our visitors, to the Water in Africa Web site. It reflects the deep connection of water to all aspects of life in African countries-a concept World Wise Schools has tried to capture in the resources and learning units featured on this site.

Funded through a grant from the Department of Education, the Water in Africa project was realized over a two year period by a team of Peace Corps Volunteers, World Wise Schools' (WWS) classroom teachers, and WWS staff members. Inspired by an idea of one creative WWS teacher, the project eventually expanded into a detailed design. The development and implementation of the design included the collection of resources from over 90 Volunteers serving in African countries, the preparation of those photos and stories, and the creation of standards-based learning units for K-12 students.

World Wise Schools is the global education program of the Peace Corps, created especially to engage American students in inquiry about the world, themselves and others in order to promote peace through understanding and friendship. WWS lesson plans, Destination videos/study guides, classroom speakers, primary resources, and correspondence matches introduce current, authentic, real-world experiences into the classroom in ways unmatched by textbooks. For more information on the WWS global education program, please visit our Web site www.peacecorps.gov/wws.

Water in Africa is a project of Peace Corps World Wise Schools.

Lesson Plans and Curriculum

"I decided to create a project involving water-borne illnesses to increase my students' knowledge of disease transmission, and to show that solving problems is complex."

"This week I finished piloting my unit based on the Tanzania folktale, 'The Hare and the Water.' To get across the relevance of the folktale to African culture, I had students search the Water in Africa Web site for pictures showing people working together to find or gather water. The importance of working together to find, preserve, and use water responsibly became very apparent."

The reflections above were provided by two of the authors of the learning units you will find in the lesson plan section of Water in Africa. The authors--innovative teachers who participate in the World Wise Schools program--created, tested, and reflected on these units during the 1999-2000 school year.

The Water in Africa units integrate two or more curricular areas and are designed to extend over several class periods. They provide sequential project based lesson plans and support national standards as found in the McRel Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education (Second Edition). The units can be read online, or downloaded in RTF and PDF formats. Likewise, all supplementary materials, including assessment rubrics, are available to download in both formats.

All the units make use of the photos and stories provided by Peace Corps Volunteers in Africa. These resources can be previewed from anywhere on the site by clicking the Resources button at the top of the screen.

WWS invites your comments on and adaptations of these learning units. To contribute to this study of Water in Africa, click Learning Community here or on the button above.



Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

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