East Asia
Map
East Asia
Challenges & Millennium Development Goals
East Asia is home to some of the fastest growing economies in the world. Despite this, the region also faces many challenges. Since the region is so diverse, we’ll look mainly at China as a case study.
Bring East Asia Alive in Your School and Classroom
School-Wide Activities
East Asian Culture Day
Have students host an East Asian culture day for an awareness raiser. This will take a lot of planning, so have them start thinking about it early. Some things they could include: a video corner where a film about East Asia is constantly playing, a music corner where people can put on headphones and listen to different sounds from the region, a competition corner where someone is hosting East Asian Jeopardy, an invention corner where people can guess what different inventions were made in China (for example, a kite, paper money, silk, etc).
Game Time
Students can research different games unique to East Asia and then bring them in to play over lunchtime. Games like mahjong (pronounced mah-jawng), Chinese checkers and dominos (which was invented in China) are a few ideas.
Subject-Specific Activities
Visual Arts
Have students each design a card with a proverb from Confucianism, Taoism or Buddhism to give to someone special in their lives and to get them thinking about the religions and philosophies of East Asia. Make sure they make it creative by using tools like watercolor, calligraphy, finger paint, collage, etc.
Language Arts
Have students write a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book using the information they learn about East Asia from the website.
Geography
Elevation is always a surprise in places like East Asia where there are high mountains alongside coastal areas and islands. Have kids explore elevation in the region and create maps that show the different altitudes using different colors and visual representations.
Read and Teach the Student Websites
We’ve also created websites especially for your students, each of which provides additional information about West Africa. Visit these sites, specific for elementary and secondary schools, to see West Africa from a student’s perspective and to absorb the information yourself.
- Website for Elementary Students—focus on East Asia
- Website for High School Students—focus on East Asia
Teaching East Asia
Here are some ways you can use the student sites to teach about East Asia:
- Read through the “Welcome to East Asia” section of the secondary website together. Talk about some of the ideas presented. What are slums? What would life be like for people living in them? How would fast growing cities affect pollution? What do your students think East Asia would look like? Have them draw a picture that includes the “skyscrapers tower[ing] over slums” and some great mountains and anything else they’ve learned about the region so far.
- Read through the “Issues” sections of the elementary or secondary websites together. As you read, tell students to write down at least two statistics, facts or pieces of information that catch their attention. When you’re finished, have students turn those two things into two bookmarks. Have them get creative, coloring or using images of East Asia from magazines or newspapers. When they’re done, have a library blitz, where students put their bookmarks into different books around the library. This way, when other students take them out, they’ll learn some interesting things about East Asia too.
- For the “Economy” section of the secondary website, have students not just think about, but actively look for, examples of China’s economic boom. Encourage students for the next week to look at the labels on everything they buy and on everything they see in stores. How many products say: “Made in China”, “Made in Taiwan” or “Made in Hong Kong”? Have students keep a tally and add them all together at the end of one week.