Africa

Africa is a diverse continent not only geographically but also culturally. These rich resources bring African art, history, traditions, folklore and much more into the classroom.

(Map courtesy of Central Intelligence Agency. More about the map)

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• Learn more about Africa, African folklore, culture, geography, history, social studies, and tradition.

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Lesson Plans

Recipes from Africa

This activity will allow students to research various Internet sites that provide recipes from Asian and African countries. They will be able to compile the recipes in a database. After compilation, they can sort the database for similarities and difference in ingredients and compare the environments of Asia and Africa.

Traveling through Africa

Students will plan a one-week, three country trip through Africa and create a travelogue of places they will visit. The students will create an electronic scrapbook of highlights of the trip (including cultural highlights, historical points of interest, geographic features, etc.)

Making Personal and Cultural Connections using “A Girl Named Disaster”

Using A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer, students learn about Africa, Shona traditions, geography, and society.

The travels of Ibn Battuta

In this Xpeditions lesson, students work in groups to research the different areas that the 14th-century Islamic traveler Ibn Battuta visited.

Drought, famine, and geographic diversity

This Xpeditions lesson will teach students about Ethiopia’s different geographic regions to combat the misconception that the country has only drought, famine, and war. As students listen to news stories, they will recognize that the media portrayals of Ethiopia are not always complete and that Ethiopia is, in fact, a geographically diverse country, including forests, grasslands, and the Blue Nile.

More lesson plan about Africa

Websites

African Voices

African Voices examines family, work, community, and the natural environment as well as the diversity and global influence of Africa’s peoples and cultures. Themes include the various forms of wealth, working and living in Africa, African markets, Kongo Crossroads, and African Diaspora. From the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

Art and Life in Africa Project

This site provides information and images related to art and life throughout Africa. The site includes maps of Africa navigating even the most novice user to information regarding specific countries and peoples, complete with demographics and settlement histories.

The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs, 1860-1960

From the Northwestern University Library website, a fascinating collection of thousands of historical photographs of East Africa, spanning the century between 1860 and 1960. Includes K-12 lesson plans and helpful historical information that situates the images into a colonial context.

Deep in the Bush Where People Rarely Go

Read the folktales of Liberia in dramatic or narrative formats. These stories, and any other African tales, work as a great introduction to the wealth of culture and history that Africa has to offer. Lessons, extension activities, recipes, weblinks and more are offered to help create a full experience.

Wonders of the African World

A site about the Africa that existed long before any Europeans set foot there. The site utilizes audio and video recordings, as well as text and photographs. You can download hands-on craft activities to do at home or at school. There is a section for the classroom that has lesson plans for grades K-12, complete with downloadable student activity sheets and answer keys.

African Vision: The Walt Disney-Tishman African Art Collection

This exhibit includes fabulous examples of African art which Paul and Ruth Tishman collected over a period of 20 years. Works include masks, ceremonial pieces, sculptures and more.

More websites about Africa