Uncovering Africa
Exhibition Project
The Uncovering Africa project was composed of a few different parts. The thing that inspired our class to learn about Africa was the book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kampwamba. It was an autobiography about a boy who lived in Malawi, Africa. He went through famine, poverty, and hardship and decided that to help his family he would build a windmill to bring power to his house as well as help with his crops. He was intrinsically motivated to do it without schooling or anything. After reading the book, our class became interested in Africa and why they are under developed. We researched the topic and came up with several different theories that people have about Africa. There was colonization, guns germs and steel, environment, foreign aid, leaders, and more. We then researched a current event (in the last 20 years) and learned as much as we could about it. Then we looked at the ways our current event could of been effected by the theories. My current event was about mining corruption in South Africa. When I looked at the causes of it, I thought that Colonization and Guns Germs and Steel seemed like the most affiliated with my current event. For Exhibition, we got in groups with people with the same theory as you. We had to think of an interactive way to tell people about Colonization. My group decided to write and perform a play for the parents. It was really fun to write. Our booth turned out okay and everything worked itself out in the end.
Here was my favorite part of my essay:
Africa and Europe are two very different places. Europe was lucky enough to have good farmland, animals, and food already there. Which let them focus on other things. Weapons, technology, medicine, construction, even developing diseases that later killed off their enemies. These are subjects that you can focus on without realizing it, once you have a basic foundation of the elements you need to live.
Now Africa on the other hand, is a whole different story.
Here is a link to the rest of my essay.
Here's the Link to my classes Exhibition PowerPoint