Peace Corps

Peace Corps Challenge

Connect the challenges from the Wanzuzu experience with lesson plans and additional resources from World Wise Schools.

Check out the lesson plans and resources below.

 

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Challenge 1: Water Contamination


National Content Standards:
  • English Language Arts Standards
    • Standard 1
  • National Science Education Standards
    • Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
  • Social Studies:
    • Theme I: Culture and Cultural Diversity
    • Theme III : People, Places, and Environments
    • Theme IX: Global Connections

Lesson plans:
  • Working With Environmental Issues (Grades 3–5 and 6–8)
    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.
  • Waterborne Illnesses (Grades 6–8 and 9–12)
    At the end of a one-week lesson, students will be able to
    • Identify common waterborne illnesses, and their symptoms, prevention, and treatment.
    • Understand how cultural traditions can make prevention of illness difficult.

Stories and Podcasts:
Factoids from the Game:
  • More than a billion people in the world—more than one-sixth of the world’s population—use unsafe water sources because they have no alternatives. Source: UNICEF
  • In developing countries, about 90 percent of sewage and 70 percent of industrial wastes is discharged untreated into other water. This often pollutes the water people use for drinking, cleaning, and irrigating. Source: United Nations

Additional Resources :

 

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Challenge 2: Sanitation and Disease


National Content Standards:
  • National Science Education Standards
    • Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
  • Social Studies:
    • Theme I: Culture and Cultural Diversity
    • Theme III : People, Places, and Environments
    • Theme IX: Global Connections

Lesson plans:
  • Water: Source of Health, Source of Illness (Grades 5–8)
    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.

Stories and Podcasts:
Factoids from the Game:
  • Lack of sufficient water and sanitation has resulted in the poor health of both adults and children. This lack of adequate water and sanitation has impacted the earnings of adults and the schooling of children. Women and girls who are responsible for collecting water are particularly impacted. Source: United Nations
  • About 2.6 billion people, including a billion children, live without basic sanitation—plumbing and clean water. Source: United Nations
  • Many Peace Corps Volunteers work specifically on water and sanitation issues. They work with their community on a wide range of projects, including hygiene education; tapping springs; constructing and protecting wells; and improving facilities for storing drinkable water. Source: Peace Corps

Additional Resources :

 

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Challenge 3: Microfinance

National Content Standards:
  • English Language Arts Standards
    • Standard 1
  • Social Studies:
    • Theme I: Culture and Cultural Diversity
    • Theme III : People, Places, and Environments
    • Theme IX: Global Connections

Factoids from the Game:
  • “Microfinance” is the building of financial systems that serve poor populations. Source: Consultative Group to Assist the Poor
  • In most developing countries, the majority of the population are poor, but it is the poor people who are the least likely to be served by regular banks. Microfinance addresses the needs of those in the population with little money. Source: Consultative Group to Assist the Poor
  • Peace Corps Volunteers working on business issues focus on increasing family income, improving the environment for businesses, educating young people, and helping businesses find markets for traditional products. Source: Peace Corps

Additional Resources

 

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Challenge 4: Barren Fields

National Content Standards:
  • English Language Arts Standards
    • Standard 1
  • National Science Education Standards
    • Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
  • Social Studies:
    • Theme I: Culture and Cultural Diversity
    • Theme III : People, Places, and Environments
    • Theme IX: Global Connections

Lesson plans:
  • Madagascar Adventure (Grades 6–8)
    Grouped in small research teams, students will simulate a trip to Madagascar through the Water in Africa resources and other related websites.

Stories and Podcasts:
Factoids from the Game:
  • Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Morocco, and Pakistan have all suffered from the effects of drought in recent years. Estimates suggest that tens of millions of people are at risk from persistent droughts worldwide. Source: UNICEF
  • According to recent estimates, slash and burn agriculture is practiced by 240 million to 500 million people on nearly half the land area in the tropics. Source: College of Natural Resources, Virginia Tech
  • Peace Corps Volunteers help farmers improve local diets and increase income through farming techniques consistent with environmental conservation. They work with farmers to improve soil quality, conserve water, develop fisheries, keep bees and produce honey, raise organic vegetables, and educate the community about nutrition. Source: Peace Corps

Additional Resources:

 

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Challenge 5: Malaria

National Content Standards:
  • English Language Arts Standards
    • Standard 1
  • National Science Education Standards
    • Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
  • Social Studies:
    • Theme I: Culture and Cultural Diversity
    • Theme III : People, Places, and Environments
    • Theme IX: Global Connections

Factoids from the Game:
  • Between 350 million and 500 million people contract malaria each year, and more than a million people a year die of the disease. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • More than two-fifths of the people in the world live in areas where malaria is transmitted, including Africa, Asia, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and islands in the Pacific. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Occurrences of malaria can be reduced by managing water resources, for example, by preventing standing water from accumulating in communities. Source: World Health Organization

Additional Resources

 

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Challenge 6: Soil Runoff

National Content Standards:
  • English Language Arts Standards
    • Standard 1
  • National Science Education Standards
    • Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
  • Social Studies:
    • Theme I: Culture and Cultural Diversity
    • Theme III : People, Places, and Environments
    • Theme IX: Global Connections

Lesson plans:
  • Fighting Soil Erosion (Grades 3–8)
    • Lesson plan: These activities will help develop a foundational understanding of soil erosion.
    • Slide show: Steve Jacobson, a former Peace Corps Volunteer, shares his experience and the different strategies Guineans are using to address soil erosion through a narrated slide show.
  • NOAA: Coastal Management (Grades 9–12)
    Explores causes, impacts, and solutions to contaminated runoff.

Stories and Podcasts:
Factoids from the Game:
  • Runoff crossing over the surface of a field carries away pollutants that it deposits in other waters, including streams, rivers, wetlands, oceans, and groundwater—the that sits below the surface of the Earth that can be tapped by wells for household water. Source: EPA: Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution
  • “Each individual can play an important role by practicing conservation and by changing certain everyday habits. Keep litter, pet wastes, leaves, and debris out of street gutters and storm drains--these outlets drain directly to lake, streams, rivers, and wetlands.” Source: EPA: What you can do to prevent NPS pollution
  • The biggest threats to the health of the seas comes not from pollution at sea but from people's actions on land. About four-fifths of pollution at sea comes from land-based actions. Source: United Nations Environment Programme

Additional Resources:

 

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Challenge 7: Educating Village Girls


National Content Standards:
  • English Language Arts Standards
    • Standard 1
  • Social Studies:
    • Theme I: Culture and Cultural Diversity
    • Theme III : People, Places, and Environments
    • Theme IX: Global Connections

Lesson Plans
  • The Flow of Women's Work (Grades 6–8)
    Students compare the division of labor in water-related work in rural Lesotho with their own households.

Stories and Podcasts
Peace Corps Publications
Factoids from the Game:
  • In every region of the world, there are primary school-aged girls who do not attend school. As of 2005, the percentages ranged from 17 percent to 69 percent of eligible girls who were not receiving an education. Source: UNESCO
  • Getting girls into school and ensuring that they stay and learn has what UNICEF calls a “multiplier effect.” Educated girls are likely to marry later and have fewer children, who in turn will be more likely to survive and be better nourished and educated. Educated girls are more productive at home and better paid in the workplace, and more able to participate in social, economic and political decision-making. Source: UNICEF
  • One of the Millennium Development Goals is to ensure gender parity in universal primary education by the year 2015. Between 1990 and 2004, an increase of 9 percent more girls worldwide were completing primary school. Source: World Bank

Additional Resources

 

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Challenge 8: Agroforestry

National Content Standards:
  • English Language Arts Standards
    • Standard 1
  • National Science Education Standards
    • Content Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
  • Social Studies:
    • Theme I: Culture and Cultural Diversity
    • Theme III : People, Places, and Environments
    • Theme IX: Global Connections

Factoids from the Game:
  • Did you know that Peace Corps Volunteers around the world work with their community to develop projects that involve trees? For example, Volunteers work on production of fruit trees, natural fences for wind protection, and raising trees in small nurseries. Source: Peace Corps: Agroforestry
  • The United States consumes and produces about a quarter of the world's forest products, making it the world leader. Source: EPA: Forestry
  • Forests cover about 30 percent of the land on Earth. Source: The UN Environmental Programme
  • Trees play a critical role in our environment. They help to protect coastal areas and soil. Trees also aid in preventing desertification, which is the expansion of deserts due to various factors including grazing and the collection of firewood. Source: The UN Environmental Programme; USGS: Desertification

Additional Resources

 

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