This enquiry offers a great way of broadening the lens of study for the First World War. It introduces students to the global war – and to the long-lasting impacts of that war across Africa.
First, the lesson disrupts students’ understanding about where the war took place, by asking them to predict where the first and last shots of the war were fired. Perhaps students will be surprised to hear that, in both cases, this was in Africa. Then, they take historian David Olusoga’s arguments about the significance of the war in Africa as a starting point,
You ask them to consider a range of evidence about the impact of the war in Africa, using Geoffrey Partington’s significance model to help them categorise this evidence.
Students come to appreciate that the war radically altered the lives of millions of Africans. Not only those who fought and gave their lives to the war effort, but those who suffered starvation, famine, plunder and disease as a result of the policies of the European powers.
Finally, students are in a position to design a more fitting memorial than those created by the British and the Germans in the wake of the war itself. They draw upon their new knowledge to explain why we cannot allow anyone to forget the impact of the First World War on Africa.
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- Lesson presentation: PowerPoint
- Lesson write-up: PDF
- Resource 1: PDF
- Worksheet 1: PDF
