African Studies Center

Outreach


Links of Interest to Educators


Lending Library for Educators

The African Studies Center has books and other materials available for teachers to borrow for their classes. Fiction and non-fiction works, for ages kindergarten through high school are available. If you would like to borrow any of these materials, please contact Stacey Sewall with your request. View listings of available titles


Lesson Plans on Africa

In November, 2007, fifteen N.C. educators came together at a workshop sponsored by World View to discuss contemporary issues in Islamic Africa. The teachers created lesson plans for their students based on the content of the workshop. The lesson plans available here are those developed by the participants.

  • Au Marche Sandaga à Dakar Grades: 2-5 Description: Students will visit le Marche Sandaga to purchase items needed for Ceebu jen , a flavorsome marinated fish cooked with tomato paste and a variety of vegetables. Student will also use basic French phrases to communicate with the merchants.
  • Contemporary North Africa: A Sociological Perspective Grades: 10-12 Description: Students are a team of travel writers assigned with writing a book about the contemporary lifestyle of a North African country.
  • Crisis in Darfur Grades: 9-12 Description: Group study of the current crisis in Sudan and Darfur.
  • Johnny Appleseed in the Sahel; or, the Giving Tree Grades: 7 Description: How can the ownership of a tree send children to school, end malnutrition, and turn back the Saharan Desert? This lesson will teach how man’s interaction with the environment is influenced by the governmental policies and economic system of Niger.
  • Pastoralists and Agrarians: Identifying Connections between Historical and Contemporary Migration Grades: 7-10 Description: Migration is a recurring theme in world history. Students will recognize the complex interactions between groups of people who come in contact with one another, using the Aryan migration into India and the current conflict in Darfur. They should be able to explain that conflicts in these areas have many causes including the relationship between agrarians and pastoralists.
  • What is Islam? Grades 3-5 Description: The learner will gain the basic concepts behind Islam as well as the 5 pillars of Islam. After brainstorming about the different religious groups that comfortably co-exist in our community, the children will learn that there are two basic groups if Muslims.


Images of Africa

This photo exhibit originated in the desire of some African Studies students to present images of Africa that were more dignified and positive than common images. They invited UNC students and faculty to submit their own photographs that depicted the “vibrancy and complexity of Africa,” and to describe in a few words the meaning the photograph had for them. In the process of putting the exhibit together, African Studies students and faculty began to experience and discuss the complexity of the project itself. What photographs would we accept or reject? What is the “right way” to “represent” Africa? Who gets to decide? We invite viewers to engage in their own reflection on this exhibit—not to “criticize” or “applaud” specific photos, but to create their own spaces of interrogation and representation that emerge as they view the exhibit.


Outreach News

Funding from the U.S. Department of Education has allowed the African Studies Center to begin developing Outreach programs for the larger community. The Center has sponsored or co-sponsored workshops on topics such as environmental issues in Africa, Islamic Africa for Community College librarians and faculty, and a Chichewa workshop for Health Affairs students and faculty. A major conference, "Law, Politics, and Islam in Africa" was held in honor of Bereket Habte Selassie with an opening address by Gloria Steinem, and was open to the public. The Outreach Office has also begun to collect resources, including books, CDs, and videos, for cost-free borrowing by K-12 teachers.

Recently, Barbara Anderson, as Outreach Coordinator for the Center, developed a team comprised of two teachers, one of whom was a social studies consultant with the North Carolina Department of Instruction and the other who was named "Social Studies Teacher of the Year" for North Carolina, a faculty member, a PhD candidate from the school of Education, and faculty in African Studies. Ms. Anderson worked with this team to create an online course that is content-rich in African Studies (meeting standards for full university credit and addressing all Africa-related criteria in the North Carolina Standard Course of Study for middle school and high school) for lateral entry teachers seeking certification to teach social studies in North Carolina. The teachers on this team attended the African Studies Association meeting and then presented a session at the North Carolina Council for Social Studies Conference, entitled "Africa: Diversify Your Instruction to Defeat Stereotypes."

If you are interested in borrowing any of the materials from the Center's Lending Library, please contact Barbara Anderson, b_anderson@unc.edu.