Lesson Plan: The Bantu Migration

Rationale: Students will learn why ancient civilizations in Western and Southern Africa chose to move and how this ancient migration affects modern cultures in Africa.

Objectives:

Students will be able to:

1. Use and understand maps.

2. Tell who the Bantu people were and where they originally lived.

3. Tell the factors that caused the Bantu to migrate and where they migrated.

4. Explain where Bantu culture is found today and why it is located there.

NCSS Themes: Culture; Time, Continuity, and Change; People, Places, and Environment

National Geography Standards:

1. How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information.

9. The characteristics, distribution, and migration of human populations on the Earth’s surfaces.

12. The processes, patterns, and functions of human settlements.

GPS:

SS7G4b: Trace the spread of the Bantu peoples and explain the impact this had on Africa.

Requirements and Resources:

Time: Three 90-minute class periods

Transparencies: Bantu notes, Bantu language map, Factors Flow Chart, Bantu migration map

Text: People, Places, and Change

Handouts: Map of Migration, Bantu language map, factors flow chart, brochure rubric

Activities:

1. Activate with pictures of Bantu people and with a map of Bantu languages in Africa.

2. Create a Bantu foldable answering the questions “Who? Where? When? Why?” about the Bantu people.

3. Have students fill out a map of the Bantu migration using a series of maps from their textbook. Review the map as a whole class.

4. Put students into small groups and give them a set of index cards each with a factor or event about the Bantu migration. Have the students put the events into chronological order. Once every group is finished, have the students fill in the events into a flow chart.

5. Have the students then classify the events into push or pull factors and fill in a graphic organizer.

Concluding Activity and Assessment:

Students, working as pairs, will create a one-page brochure advertising for the Bantu people to move into Southern Africa. They must give at least 3 reasons for why the Bantu people should move and include pictures and persuasive writing. They will be given a rubric detailing the activity.

Vocabulary:

Swahili, Bantu, migration

References:

Helgren, David M., Robert J. Sager, Alison S. Brooks. People, Places, and

Change. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 2005.