CNN Student News Learning Activity: The crisis in Darfur

(CNN Student News) -- Students will learn about the history and scope of the humanitarian crisis occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Procedure

Direct student groups to multimedia resources to learn about the history and scope of the humanitarian crisis occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan. Pose the following questions to guide students' research:

1. Where is Sudan located?
2. What is the ethnic composition of Sudan?
3. What conflict is taking place in Sudan's Darfur region?
4. How did this conflict start?
5. How has this conflict impacted the country and its people?
6. What is the potential fate of the refugees?
7. How have the Sudanese government, the United Nations, the international community and the United States responded to the Darfur crisis?
8. What is the status of the conflict?

After groups present their findings, ask students: What actions do you think that the Sudanese government, the U.N., the international community and the U.S. could take at this point in time to broker lasting peace and stability in the Darfur region?

Extension: Ask students: What lessons do you think that young people around the world might learn from the crisis in Darfur? Challenge students to draw upon their research to create an in-school campaign to educate their peers about this humanitarian crisis.

Correlated Standards

Civics

What is the Relationship of the United States to Other nations and to World Affairs?

Standard 22: Understands how the world is organized politically into nation-states, how nation-states interact with one another, and issues surrounding U.S. foreign policy

Level III Grade : 6-8

Benchmark 2: Knows the most important means used by nation-states to interact with one another (e.g., trade, diplomacy, treaties and agreements, humanitarian aid, economic incentives and sanctions, military force and the threat of force)

McREL: Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education (Copyright 2000 McREL) is published online by Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) (http://www.mcrel.org/standards-benchmarks), 2550 S. Parker Road, Suite 500, Aurora, CO 80014

World History

Era 9 - The 20th Century Since 1945: Promises and Paradoxes

Standard 44: Understands the search for community, stability, and peace in an interdependent world

Level II Grade : 5-6

Benchmark 3: Understands efforts to improve political and social conditions around the world (e.g., the progress of human and civil rights around the globe since the 1948 U.N. Declaration of Human Rights; how the apartheid system was dismantled in South Africa and the black majority won voting rights; the progress made since the 1970s in resolving conflict between Israel and neighboring states)

Level II Grade : 7-8

Benchmark 9: Understands the motivations, moral imperatives, and goals of specific separatist movements around the globe and the potential impact on the affected populations

McREL: Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K-12 Education (Copyright 2000 McREL) is published online by Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) (http://www.mcrel.org/standards-benchmarks), 2550 S. Parker Road, Suite 500, Aurora, CO 80014

Keywords

Darfur, Sudan, humanitarian crisis, war, genocide, refugees, United Nations E-mail to a friend