Lesson: Exploring World Heritage Locally & Globally: Philadelphia, Nigeria, India, and Haiti
Source: Philadelphia World Heritage Tool Kit
Created by: Kristin Nakaishi, Global Leadership Academy Charter School
Subjects: Global Studies, Language Arts
Grade Levels: 5
View or download this Lesson Plan.
Overview: This lesson first helps scholars define the meaning of culture and identity and learn about their own culture. Second, this lesson helps scholars explain why their own city is culturally important. Third, scholars will examine other cultures from India, Haiti, and Nigeria and learn why they are important. This lesson uses the UNESCO criteria as the framework for heritage and cultural significance. Scholars will advocate for a cultural site within Philadelphia, India, Nigeria, or Haiti that is either on the waiting list or not yet nominated to be examined by UNESCO’s General Assembly.
Objectives: Students will be able to explain their own culture and heritage, explain the relevance of world heritage sites and cities, explain why it is beneficial to be designated a world heritage city or site, explain why Philadelphia fits world heritage city criteria, and to identify world heritage cities and/or sites in Nigeria, Haiti, and India. Students will also be able to explain how world heritage sites in Nigeria, Haiti, and India fit the UNESCO criteria, find other culturally important sites and cities within Nigeria, Philadelphia, Haiti, and India, evaluate them and persuade an audience as to why they are culturally significant, create visuals to enhance their arguments for designating a cultural site, and to present their findings to an audience.
The Philadelphia World Heritage Tool Kit
This lesson is one of 29 lessons (K-12, all subjects) in the Philadelphia World Heritage Tool Kit. The goal of the Tool Kit is to help educators and their students develop a transnational analysis in their classrooms by using complex themes of world heritage as a framework to understand global regions across disciplines. These themes include shared architectural, cultural, economic, environmental, political, recreational, religious, and social heritage features. Real teachers created these lessons and based their work on “best practices” that reflect student collaboration and the broad goals of young people in ways that support care and understanding of others who may be very different in background and history.