Students examine the kingdoms of West Africa during the Middle Ages. They label maps and identify Africa's physical features, simulate the trading of gold, buy and sell goods using cowrie shells, and participate in a cultural safari day.

Students complete many activities including mapping, reading books, and Internet research to learn about European exploration. In this European lesson plan, students study geographical mapping, trade, and colonization.

Students transfer what they have learned about China into an electronic project. In this collaborative project, students take what they have learned from their textbooks and synthesize the information in order to create an electronic...

Students explore the the legends and myths of the Orient, Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas in this six lessons unit. Different cultures and belief systems of the inhabitants of these areas are examined through storytelling techniques.

A learning module on global trade. It includes several supporting questions accompanied by formative tasks and source materials, followed by a summative performance task. Students investigate what countries export and import, the factors...

Learning module uses 18th Century literature as primary source material to examine the debate over slavery and the role Olaudah Equiano played in the conversation.

This unit examines globalization from its true origins rooted in China's desire for silver and in Spain's conquest of mines in America.

In the novel "Heart of Darkness," Marlow travels up the Congo River on behalf of a Belgian trading company. Once he is far upriver he encounters the mysterious Kurtz, a man who has set himself up as a god amongst the natives. Selected...

An intriguing resource that gives first hand accounts of four Africans being taken from their homes and forced into slavery. Click on the pictures of the people to read their unbelievable stories and see artifacts about slavery.

An excellent overview of the African American experience in America beginning with West Africa during the slave trade, through emancipation and reconstruction, to "New beginnings."

Newberry Library lesson using digitized primary source explores how Aphra Behn's novel, Oroonoko, compares to other representations of race, slavery, and colonialism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Questions to consider are...