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Curriculum Links

Introductory Activities

Learning Activities

Assessment Activities


Curriculum Links:

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Introductory Activities:

1. Feelie bags: Find objects that relate to Cambodia – rice, fish sauce, toy cow, length of checked cloth for a kramah (traditional long cotton scarf), palm sugar, incense, palm leaf, piece of twisted metal, toy gun etc, depending on age group.  Put one object in each bag and give a bag to each small group.  They take turns to feel inside and guess what the object is.  Then they look inside, identify it and say what it tells them about Cambodia.

2. War memories: For homework, ask students to talk to an older family member or friend who remembers life during wartime (either as a soldier or a civilian).  Alternatively, invite one or two people to speak to the class.  Find out about how the war affected their lives and how their experiences have affected the way they think and feel since then.  Some students may have such memories themselves – if they are willing, they could share these.

3. Made you: In pairs, describe to each other a time when someone made you do something that you didn’t want to do. How did they make you?  How did you feel?  What would have happened if you hadn’t obeyed?  As a class, build up a list of ways people make others do things, and another list of feelings people have when they are forced to do something.

4. Silent Movie: Buy or borrow the video “Seasons of Change”.  Start the video just after the title, with the sound off.  Stop every minute or two so students can guess where this might be, what might be happening and what they think this video is about.

5. Take a Walk: Register the class to play the “Take a Walk – Cambodia” game in which students can “become” a Cambodian family living through the events leading up to, during and after the Khmer Rouge regime.  Divide the class into groups of two to four students, and follow the website instructions to set up for each group.  Use the game to structure your unit, with students researching each stage of Cambodian history as they prepare for each set of decisions.

6. Questions: Do this after another starter activities. As an individual, a group or class (depending on class level), write the focusing question for this unit in the centre of a piece of paper:

L4: What were the causes of the upheavals in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime, and how did these events shape the lives of Cambodians, at the time, and into the present?

L5: How did the upheavals and climate of fear during the Khmer Rouge time affect the relationships between Khmer Rouge and other citizens, and how do they still affect relationships within the Samrong Tong community?

L6: How did the Khmer Rouge’s radical communist ideas change Cambodian society while they were in power, and how is this still impacting Cambodian society today?

L7: What were the long-term and short-term causes of the events during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, and what have been their short-term and long-term consequences for the lives of people there?

Underline the key words.  For each key word, think of questions that could help you to find out about that aspect of the unit.  Lastly, look at the focusing question as a whole.  Try to think of more questions that will help you to learn enough to answer the focusing question.  During the unit, come back to these questions and see how many you can now answer.

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Learning Activities:

7. Special reports: Choose one category from the Country Info Section of the website (geography, climate, people, economics or health), making sure at least one person in the class covers each category.  Read the information and fact comparisons for your category, and choose three to four facts that you think say the most about life in Cambodia.  Write a paragraph about that aspect of Cambodia, including the facts you chose and what they mean for life there.

8. Fact pictures: Choose one fact comparison from each page of the Country Info Section of the website (geography, climate, people, economics or health), and illustrate it as a graph or diagram.  Write a sentence under each diagram saying what this fact tells you about life in Cambodia.

9. Holiday: Imagine you are planning a holiday in Cambodia.  Looking at the information on the Climate website page, what month would you most want to go there, and why?  What clothes would you take with you for that time of year? 

Variation: Look at the Special Occasions website page and choose the festival you would most want to attend.  Then use the climate information to find out the weather at that time of year, and plan what clothes to take.

10. Our climate: In New Zealand, email Niwa at climate-enquiries@niwa.co.nz and request rainfall and temperature data for the area where you live.  Use this to create climate graphs for your area.  Compare these graphs to the ones for Cambodia on the Climate website page.  What differences do you notice?

11. Video: Borrow or buy the video “Seasons of Change”. Look for how Cambodia’s history, and especially the Khmer Rouge regime, has affected and still affects people’s lives (L4); the relationships among them (L5); Cambodian society (L6 and 7)

12. Culture teams: Divide the class into groups, and allocate each group a different aspect of culture to find out about.  Each group does one activity that relates to their aspect, then uses the item they produce to tell the rest of the class about that aspect of life in Cambodia.

·        Food pyramids: Copy a food pyramid (from a nutrition book or similar).  Read the Food website page.  For each type of food mentioned, decide where it goes in our food pyramid, and write it there.

·        Food comparison: Draw a Venn diagram with two circles – Cambodian food and New Zealand food.  Using the website page on Food for information, think of as many similarities and differences as you can, and write these on the appropriate parts of the diagram.

·        Instructions: Write clear, numbered step-by-step instructions to show someone how to make palm sugar (see the Food website page in the “Let’s Go” website), starting with collecting the sap.

·        Houses: Copy the diagram of a house on the Houses website page and add labels to show three things that make the house suitable for the Cambodian climate (floods, heavy rain, hot days).

·        Compare beliefs: Read the Religion website page carefully and make a list of things that Buddhists believe, and things they do to express their beliefs.  Think of another religion that you know about, for example Christianity or Islam.  Write a similar list of things that people who follow that religion believe and do.  Highlight similarities in one colour, and differences in another colour.  Write a summary statement on similarities and differences between the two religions.

·        Festivals: Choose one of the festivals on the Special Occasions website page and draw a picture plus title to show what happens then.  Create a class display of all your special occasion pictures.

·        Travel guide: Read the website page on Sayings and Attitudes, and mark things you think would be especially helpful for travellers to know, so they can understand people, and not cause offence.  Make a brochure that could be given to travellers, including at least three things people need to know about Cambodians, and at least four things that travellers need to do, or avoid doing, while they are in Cambodia.

13. Culture capsule: Cambodians felt they had lost much of their past and culture after the Khmer Rouge time. Imagine you are a Cambodian before Pol Pot, and you know there is a risk of losing cultural records.  Make a time capsule to preserve the things you think are most important to Cambodian culture.

Variation: Think about the things we would miss most from our culture, if something happened to destroy it.  Make a time capsule, in case this happens, so people in your community can remember their culture.

14. Cambodia Day: Hold a Cambodia day in which everyone “spends the day in Cambodia”.  Include some or all of the following activities:

·        Try making a few of the Cambodian dishes from the Recipes website page.  Put on a Cambodian meal for your class, invited staff members, your parents, or invite another class to share it with you.  To make the occasion really special, invite some Cambodian people to dress in Cambodian clothes, play a tape of Cambodian music and decorate the room with checked cloths and photos of Cambodia.

·        Use the information on the Clothing website page to find out what Cambodians wear.  Find collage materials that look similar to the clothes Cambodians wear, and use them to illustrate Cambodian dress.

·        In a group, choose one of the games from the Games website page, assemble everything you need and then try playing it.

·        Try carrying water, or collecting firewood, as families in Cambodia do.  You could make this a race between teams, or time how long it takes to carry a bucket of water a certain distance.

15. Picture dictation: Divide a page into eight boxes.  Read out the History page from the back of the “Fields of Hope” poster, stopping after each section.  Students write the first section heading under the first box and then record the main idea from that section by drawing a picture.  Continue until students have a heading and picture for each stage of Cambodian history.

16. History road: Either as an individual or as a class, make a history road.  For each era of Cambodian history on the History page from the back of the “Fields of Hope” poster, design a road sign with a symbol to represent the main events happening then.  Label the eras and give the road a title.

Variation:  Assign the seven eras to seven groups.  Each group prepares a history road for their era.  Some will cover less than 10 years (include more detail) and others will cover decades or many centuries (exclude some detail).

17. Personal Stories: There are five stories in the People section of the website – Siep, Morn and Kea, Huat, Sok Hon and Hem Pom.  Choose how many of these you want students to cover.  Then instruct students, in groups, to choose one of these activities for each of the stories they need to cover:

·        Story feelings: One student in the group reads the story aloud.  The others close their eyes and imagine they are the person in the story.  Stop at several points during the story, and have students use feeling words, or draw faces to show how they would have felt at that time.  At the end of the story, they think-pair-share to find at least four different emotions they think the person would feel, looking back at their life.

·        Timeline: Highlight the main events in the story.  Use this to create a timeline for that person’s life.  Colour-code or label the timeline to show how the events relate to the different eras of Cambodia’s history.

·        Dramatisation: Choose one event from the story that you think would have been especially dramatic and perform a short play or mime of the event.

·        Tableaux: Discuss which moment in the story you think was most critical in this person’s life.  Construct a tableau of this moment.  A tableau is still and quiet – like a physical photograph of a moment in time.  Each person in the group becomes a person or thing in the scene (eg a tree, bomb etc).  Remember to use expressions as well as your pose, to show what is happening and how the people in the scene are feeling.

18. Journalist: Read one of the five stories in the People section of the website. Imagine you are a journalist, visiting Cambodia just after the Khmer Rouge time, and that you interview Siep, Morn, Kea or Huat, and hear their story.  Write a magazine story about that person’s experiences during the Khmer Rouge time.

19. Pick and mix: In a group of four, each person chooses two of the seven different eras in the History section of the website so that they cover all the eras (with two people doing the Khmer Rouge era).  They choose from the following activities, doing two different ones for their eras.  Report back to the group in historical order.

·        Pictorial history: For one era show the major events in a picture or visual diagram.  Use symbols but no words.  Plan how to visually distinguish this era from others.

·        Star causes:  Draw a star diagram for each of these events showing the main things that caused them or contributed to them. The civil war of the Lon Nol era; The return to democracy; The rise of the Khmer Rouge; The country’s recovery and development; The departure of the Vietnamese in 1989; The departure of the French and independence; Colonisation by the French

·        Ordinary guy:  Imagine you are interviewing an ordinary person living at a critical time in this era.  You have asked them “What do you feel about what is happening at this time?”  Use the 5W and 1H question prompts to imagine and write their response.

20. KR Speech: Use this website and other resources (library, “Killing Fields” movie, internet) to find out why the Khmer Rouge arose, what they were trying to achieve, how they went about it.  Imagine you are a Khmer Rouge leader in the years before the Khmer Rouge came to power.  Give a speech to people in a Cambodian village to tell them why they should support your organisation.

21. Trust quotes: Read the Khmer Rouge Time quotes from the poster or website. What effect would these events have had on people’s trust in one another? If possible, watch the video again for more examples.  Make a T chart and list the actions and events from the quotes under these headings.

22. Discuss stories:  Have volunteers read out the Khmer Rouge Time quotes from the poster or website. After each quote, discuss – how would you feel if that happened to you?  How would it affect your life later? Discuss how the long-term effects mentioned might affect the lives of individuals and communities.

23. Leaders:  Reveal, one by one, a selection of items for students to guess who each person might be. 

Pol Pot - Quotes (remove his name) and printout of Tuol Sleng picture (without caption) from the History section website pages, black cotton cloth, tin of rice, printout of Tuol Sleng picture from Khmer Rouge page, the following keywords written on card (Prime Minister, 1975, born 1928)

Sihanouk – crown, quote, French flag, temple picture, the following keywords written on card (Prime Minister, 1941, born 1922), an old movie reel

Variation 1: Build your own collection that represents who each person was.

Variation 2: Compare the two people.  Who had most influence on Cambodia’s past and future?

24. Tomb stones: Write the tomb stone for Pol Pot and Sihanouk (for after his death).  Include their name(s), year of birth, description of who they were and what they did, and a memorial comment appropriate to their lasting legacy to the people of Cambodia. 

Variation:  Write an obituary for Pol Pot or Sihanouk.

25. Historical inquiry: Research an aspect of Cambodia’s history relating to your study. 

Use the listed resources on the Links website page and locate others.  Communicate your understanding as an essay, powerpoint presentation or computer presentation.

Make sure you include both “hard” information (facts, figures, dates etc) and opinion, either your own or that of others (attributed to them).  Consider including relevant photographs, diagrams, graphs and other visuals to illustrate key historical ideas.

26. Check the source: Design a checklist and use it to assess each source of information used in your research.  Include items such as title, author (organisation/source), medium (webpage, book, article, TV item etc), type of information (fiction, auto/biographical account, history etc) original date, copyright, evaluation of content (perspective, bias, accuracy, authority).

27. Effect links: Copy the Echoes of the Past diagram from the back of the “Fields of Hope” poster and put it in the middle of a class display.  Find a photo, caption or quote that relates to each box in the diagram.  Arrange these around the diagram, and use coloured wool to connect them to the box they illustrate.

Variation: After the above activity, find photos, captions and quotes that show ways of addressing the effects in the diagram.  Use different colour wool to connect these.

28. Explain effects: Choose one effect from the “Echoes of the Past” diagram page from the back of the “Fields of Hope” poster, and write a sentence or paragraph describing the process by which this effect could make people’s lives more difficult in Cambodia today.

Variation: Write another sentence for each effect to say how Cambodia’s history of war and instability could have caused this effect.

29. Causes:  Use the video “Seasons of Change” and the diagram on the Needs website page to complete the T chart.

Variation 1: Have half the students start with the video and half start with the diagram.  Swap mid-way to complete the chart.

Variation 2: Use a triple T chart identifying the causes considering four factors.

Physical/environmental factors		Economic factors		Political factors		Social factors

30. Development display: Copy the contents of the boxes from the diagram on the Change website page and divide them into their separate bullet points.  Give one point to each student.  They draw an illustration for their point, and write a brief heading. As a class, sort the items into groups (not necessarily the ones given) and then arrange them into a display.

31. Most important: In a group, discuss which of the seven aspects of the project from the diagram on the Change website page you think is most important and why. 

32. Rice bank: Read the rice bank cartoon from the Change website page.  Imagine you are Siep.  Write a sentence explaining to a friend why the rice bank makes life easier for you.

33. Cow bank: In a group of six to eight people, read the description of how a cow bank works from the Change website page, then simulate your own “cow bank”, using coloured cards (for cows), white cards (for male calves) and a coin.  One person receives one “cow”.  They toss a coin to see what sort of calf their cow has – heads for a male (receive a white card), tails for a female (receive a coloured card).  Then they pass their “cow” to the next person, and keep their calf.  Each “year”, anyone who has one or more female cows tosses the coin once for each one they have.  Mark off a tally for every “year” that passes. How many years does it take for everyone in the group to have at least one cow or bull?  How many cows does the village have in total?

34. Effect solutions: Print out the diagram from the Needs website page. Read the diagram on the Change website page to find out what the project is doing to help people to find solutions to some of the problems caused by the past war and instability.  For each box in the Needs diagram, decide whether one or more aspects of the project is helping address this effect.  If so, write the project action or actions beside the box.

Variation: Cut the Change diagram into its separate bullet points.  Put the Needs diagram on the left hand side of an A3 page, and arrange the Change bullet points beside it, with lines to show the links between effects and project actions.

35. Future timeline: Draw two futures for Cambodia in the next ten years from now.  For one future predict ‘probable’ events and for the other predict ‘possible’ events.  Which outcome do you prefer?  Identify steps people in Cambodia/someone in NZ could take to influence this.

36. Memory wall: Think about what has been most meaningful to you in your learning about Cambodia or what you think has had the most impact on people in Cambodia.  Express this as a story, poem, artwork, Powerpoint presentation, video clip, song, speech, essay or other item.  Submit your finished personal response to the Memory Wall by following the instructions on the Memory Wall website page.

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Assessment Activities:

Assessment activities are only for main objectives.

Level 4: Diary entries: Imagine you are a Cambodian who was your age when the Khmer Rouge came to power.  Write two diary entries for “your” life – one for a day during the Khmer Rouge rule, and one for a day in recent years.  Each entry should say what is happening in your life, and how your life is affected by the events of the Khmer Rouge time.

Level 5: Radio interview: In pairs, imagine you are a New Zealand journalist and a Cambodian who was a teenager at the time of the Khmer Rouge.  You are doing an interview for a New Zealand radio station on the effects that the Khmer Rouge had on people’s trust for one another.  The interview should cover what happened to the Cambodian during the Khmer Rouge time, who he/she trusted and who he/she did not trust and why.  Plan your interview, with written notes on the questions you will ask and the main points you will cover.  Perform or record the interview.

Level 6: Feature article: Imagine you are a Cambodian who lived through the Khmer Rouge regime, came to New Zealand as a refugee and is now a journalist for a major New Zealand newspaper or magazine.  You have just been back to Cambodia interviewing people and observing society.  Write a feature article describing the impact that the beliefs and ideas of the Khmer Rouge had on Cambodian society at the time, and the impact this is still having on society now.

Level 7: Mirror map: Print out or redraw the consequences diagram from the Needs website page.  Attach another sheet to the left side of this diagram.  Draw a “Causes” diagram to match it that shows the causes of war and instability in Cambodia.  Use this diagram as the structure for an essay explaining the short-term and long-term causes and consequences of war and instability in Cambodia in the 1970s.

Level 7 (alternate assessment): Recipe:  Use the format of a recipe to write a recipe for war and instability.  First list your ingredients (factors from the past eg ruled by a colonial power).  Next write the recipe action steps (actions in sequence that caused instability eg oppress people by getting rid of opposition - Mix together, separate, heat quickly etc).  Finally describe the end result (the final outcome – ruled by a harsh regime with much suffering)

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