Greetings. Valerie here.
Art of Conservation’s students are now more comfortable looking at maps and locating the country of Rwanda as well as the precise locations of the endangered mountain gorilla habitat!
I begin our geography lesson with Planet Earth. Children discover the compasses on maps and globes representing north, south, east, and west. They locate and say over and over the names of the seven continents. I ask the kids what surrounds the continents… AMAZI they respond, which is water in Kinyarwanda. Earth is a water planet with its surface consisting of approximately 70% water. Together we locate the equator on the various maps now on the classroom walls and worksheets. Students learn that Rwanda is located 2 degrees south of the equator in the southern hemisphere.
With a colored pencil, Olive locates Rwanda and colors it in. Following Rwanda, Olive locates the East African Community country members which includes Rwanda: Burundi, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda.
A FEW WORLD FACTS
Although the source of the Nile River is and maybe always will be argued upon, we know it takes its source in or near Rwanda. Flowing from Central Africa it empties into the Mediterranean Sea. Children color in the Mediterranean Sea on their worksheets with their colored pencils.
What’s the highest mountain in Africa? Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. What’s the biggest desert in the world? The Sahara. More coloring in on their worksheets.
I pass out visuals of the Nile River, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the Sahara Desert.
When asked to locate a specific country, Angelique searches and finds!
My big challenge is to teach the kids about the difference between the Democratic Republic of Congo and its capital Kinshasa with the ‘other’ Congo and its capital Brazzaville. That’s going to take some time to master!
This student is busy locating Mali, one of the many countries where the Sahara Desert is located.
I started BIG with a look at the world, then to the continent of Africa, and to end our lesson we study a map showing the endangered mountain gorilla habitat- Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and the Virunga Massif. I want the children to realize that they live in a unique and important place in the world along side a rare animal species. With a better concept of this, they will gain a better understanding of why flocks of tourists travel here to climb the volcanoes day after day and what effects, both positive and negative, it has upon them.
Our students loved this lesson and now they can locate their place where they live on the globe.
