Africa

Resources for Teachers

Check out these interdisciplinary activity ideas and online resources you can use to explore African wildlife, history, politics, and more.

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Teaching Ideas

Inside the Pharaoh's Tomb

Have you ever wondered what you would find if you traveled to the Pyramids of Egypt? For thousands of years these monuments to the dead have fascinated historians and tourists. You now have the chance to explore the Secrets of the Pharaohs of Egypt. Your task is the following:

Explore several Web sites and determine what you might find in a pyramid tomb. After you have explored these sites, use a shoebox to recreate what a tomb would look like. Use natural materials, create your own materials, and color hieroglyphics on the wall of your mini tomb. Try to be as accurate as possible, but be creative!

Here are some links to help you get started:

• PBS Secrets of the Pharaohs
  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/pharaohs/
• NOVA Pyramids: The Inside Story
  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/
• Ancient Egypt WebQuest
  http://www.iwebquest.com/egypt/ancientegypt.htm
• Ancient Egypt
  http://library.thinkquest.org/J002657
• The Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology
  http://www.memphis.edu/egypt/main.html
• History Wiz: Egypt
  http://www.historywiz.com/anc-egypt.htm

A Serengeti Safari

Imagine yourself as a zookeeper. Some new animals will be arriving at your zoo in the next few months, and you have to plan a habitat that is appropriate for these animals.

Research which animals might be found in the Serengeti. Choose an animal that interests you, and begin planning a zoo habitat. Draw what the zoo habitat would look like. What types of food would you need to feed this animal to make sure it is properly nourished? What types of plants and other natural environment will be in the habitat? What type of barriers will be built to keep the animals safe, secure, and away from zoo visitors?

Draw your plan and present your habitat to the class. Be sure you answer the questions raised above, and add any other facts you found interesting while researching your animal. Use the following sites to help you begin your research:

• Nature: Serengeti Stories
  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/serengeti/
• Nature: Cheetahs in a Hot Spot
  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/cheetahs/
• Nature: The Elephants of Africa
  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/elephants/
• Serengeti National Park
  http://www.gorp.com/gorp/location/africa/tanzania/ser_intr.htm
• Nature: Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees
  http://www.wnet.org/nature/goodall/

PBS Online Resources: Sites to See

History and Culture

Secrets of the Pharaohs

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/pharaohs/
Join in as scientists discover a lost city and learn the secrets of its forgotten inhabitants. Examine 7,000 year old DNA and find out what it reveals about the mysterious past.

Ralphe Bunch: An American Odyssey

http://www.pbs.org/ralphbunche/
Ralph Bunche was the first African American and the first person of color to win the Nobel Peace prize—an honor he received in 1950 in recognition of his successful mediation of the Armistice Agreements between four Arab nations (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) and Israel. Bunche was celebrated worldwide for his contributions to humanity, particularly in the areas of peacekeeping, decolonization, human rights and civil rights.

Wonders of the African World

http://www.pbs.org/wonders/
Join Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as he travels the continent of Africa, exploring its rich history and introducing you to contemporary African people and cultures.

NOVA: Secrets of Lost Empires

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/
NOVA brings together a team of Egyptologists, engineers, stonemasons, and timber framers to probe the mystery of how the ancients shaped, transported, and erected their elegant obelisks.

NOVA: Treasures of the Sunken City

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sunken/
This site chronicles the underwater discovery of the fabled Pharaoh's lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, just offshore from the modern city of Alexandria in Egypt.

NOVA: Mysteries of the Nile

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/egypt/
With real-time dispatches and digital photos filed from the Nile in March 1999 and from a quarry in Massachusetts in August and September 1999, the adventure chronicles both NOVA's search for archaic clues to obelisk-raising, and its attempt to erect one of these pillars of stone itself. Learn what happened, meet the team, and try to lever your own obelisk.

NOVA: Pyramids: The Inside Story

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/
Have you ever dreamed of exploring the pyramids of Egypt? If so, enter here, wander through the chambers and passageways of the Great Pyramid, and learn about the pharaohs for whom these monumental tombs were built. You can also follow the 1997 field season of a team of archaeologists as they excavated the bakery that fed the pyramid builders.

Contemporary African Issues and People

Hopes on the Horizon

http://www.pbs.org/hopes/
This documentary Web site examines Africans' struggles for democratic renewal during the 1990s. In stories from six different nations, the program takes the pulse of a continent in transition during a turbulent decade—the most important one for Africa since the heady independence decade of the 1960s.

Journey To Peace

http://www.pbs.org/journeytopeace/
This is the story of the history-making journey of two extraordinary men—Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr. John Hope Franklin, leader of President Clinton's Advisory Board on Race—and a multi-ethnic group of 21 teenagers. They come together for the first time on the infamous island of Goree, a former slave port off the coast of Senegal to talk frankly about issues of race and imperialism.

The New Americans

http://www.pbs.org/newamericans/
Meet Barine Wiwa-Lawani, a refugee from Nigeria and sister of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a writer and activist who was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995. Join Barine as she returns to Nigeria for the first time in several years to attend her brother's long-delayed funeral.

Frontline: Ambush at Mogadishu

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ambush/
On October 3, 1993 elite units of the US Army's Rangers and Delta Force were ambushed by Somali men, women and children armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. The Rangers were pinned down in the most dangerous part of Mogadishu, Somalia and taking casualties. What had started out as an operation to capture warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid turned into a tragic firefight that lasted seventeen hours, left eighteen Americans dead, eighty four wounded and continues to haunt the US military and American foreign policy.

Frontline: The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mandela/
Explore the life of one of the 20th century's greatest activists and statesmen.

Frontline: The Triumph of Evil

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/
"The Triumph of Evil" is a vivid and revealing report on how the 1994 Rwanda genocide could have been prevented. Drawing on dramatic footage, previously confidential cables and interviews with U.N. and U.S. officials, Frontline investigates how months earlier the U.S. and U.N. had been warned by a key Rwandan informant about the coming slaughter. Despite the warning, the West didn't try to prevent it.

Wonders of the African World

http://www.pbs.org/wonders/
Join Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as he travels the continent of Africa, exploring its rich history and introducing you to contemporary African people and cultures.

African Wildlife

The Living Edens: Etosha

http://www.pbs.org/edens/etosha/
Southern Africa's Etosha is a vast and ancient land of seasonal paradox. During the blooming of the wet season, this an Eden of glorious abundance in which spring boks, elephants, lions, leopards, cheetahs, jackals, zebras, and giraffe thrive.

The Living Edens: Namib

http://www.pbs.org/edens/namib/
Namib is a two thousand kilometer strip of land on the southwestern coast of Africa where the cold Atlantic sea and searing Namibian desert join. With few watering holes, animals must roam the beach and seek nourishment from the bountiful marine life.

The Living Edens: Ngorongoro

http://www.pbs.org/edens/ngorongoro/
Travel to Ngorongoro to learn about craters, cheetahs, wildebeests, jackals, and more.

Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure: Africa

http://www.pbs.org/hemingwayadventure/africa.html
Retrace Hemingway's footsteps on a Kenya safari.

Nature: Serengeti

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/serengeti/
Sample the safari game, race with cheetahs, and learn about the life of a wildlife photographer.

Nature: Cheetahs in a Hot Spot

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/cheetahs/
Travel to Namibia, one of the world's richest cheetah habitats, for a remarkable look at these graceful hunters. Follow six gangly young cheetahs as they come of age in the desert wilderness of Etosha National Park, where they learn the essential hunting and social skills that will enable them to rear families of their own.