If the World Were a Village classroom activities to help ...



If the World Were a Village activities page by page. Also visit

The activities are grouped following the headings in the book and can be linked to state and national standards, including Geography, Citizenship, literacy, numeracy, speaking and listening, creative writing etc.

Nationalities (pages 8-9) – Discuss continents. Give each pupil a base-map of the world. Ask them to name and label continents, and then to draw figures on the map to show the people living in each one.

Languages (Pages 10-11) – Learn to say hello‚ in the 8 languages most widely spoken around the world. Many examples (including pronunciation guidance) are available at:

Ages (Pages 12-13) – Investigate how the ages and sex of the population of a country can be shown on a graph called a population pyramid. At the following website: ipc/www/idbpyr.html

select countries and print out their population pyramids, which pupils can compare (e.g. the UK and India).

Brainstorm reasons why the distribution of population differs, (e.g. health, environmental factors, civil war etc.) As a class, share ideas. Another extension activity: pupils consider how the population of a country changes over time. What might some issues be (medical care, housing, pensions) if people live a lot longer?

Use an atlas, or a website such as the CIA World Fact Book, cia/publications/factbook

go to "Search the World Fact Book"‚ and then type in "life expectancy" to find the countries with the longest life expectancy, and the shortest life expectancy. Discuss some of the reasons why life expectancy might be high and what could be done to help those in countries with the shortest life expectancy.

Religions (Pages 14-15) – Display books about different religions. Alternatively, you could use the Internet: put students into small groups, each with one of the religions on page 15. Give students 15 minutes to look up and summarize, in no more than 10 sentences, the main beliefs, observances and festivals of their group's religion. You could pose the following questions: What is the collective name for followers of this religion? What is their place of worship called? Name one or more festivals and the time of year in which it usually occurs. What is the religious leader of the community called? Name the holy book (if applicable) or a key belief. Ask students to present the religion they have researched. As a follow-on activity, ask students to use non-fiction books and the Internet to find out which parts of the world have a concentration of people of one particular religion. This could lead to a discussion about countries with a state religion.

Air and water (Pages 18-19) – Where does the school's water supply come from? Help students work out the route the water travels, from the point where it falls as rain right to the tap. How far does it travel? How is it processed? How much of the route is affected by human engineering? As a follow-on activity, compare our access to clean water with the way people acquire water in a remote village, in a poorer country. The activities on .uk are an excellent way to do this. Ask students to keep a diary of the water they use in a day. Some approximate figures: bath 90 quarts, shower 30 qts, toilet 8 qts, washing machine 95 qts, dishwasher 50 qts, sink of water 5 qts, glass of water 1/2 qt. Include the family. Show results as a graph. Simulate water collection by having pupils carry full buckets of water across the playground or field. Impress upon them the importance of not spilling any of it and ask them to talk about how difficult or easy it is to complete the task. Explain that in many parts of the world women and girls spend around 60% of their time each day collecting and carrying water.

Schooling and literacy pages 20-21 – Discuss the possible reasons why only 31 of the 38 school-aged villagers in the global village attend school. List reasons why it is important to be able to read and write.

Money and possessions pages 22-23 – Guess which countries are rich and which are poor. In pairs look up the world's 5 richest and 5 poorest countries and mark up this information on a map. Next, reasons why the countries might be rich or poor. As a class, discuss these reasons. Ask students, in pairs, to list as many currencies as possible and the countries in which they are used.

Electricity pages 24-25 – Ask students to keep a diary of everything they do which uses electricity, (turning on lights, watching tv). Discuss how life would be different if we did not have access to electricity.

The village in the past, and in the future pages 26-29 – Give the students the following problem to work out. If they were given one jelly bean‚ to eat on day one, two on day two, four on day three, eight on day four, and this number kept doubling each day, how many jelly beans‚ would they have to eat by day thirty? A calculator is usually necessary for students to work this out as the figure on day 30 is an amazing five hundred and thirty six million, eight hundred and seventy thousand, nine hundred and twelve. This exercise simulates the growth of the world's population over 30 generations, assuming the average number of children per family is four. This exercise can provide the basis for a lively discussion about the world's future.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download