External Global Studies Grants, Travel and Opportunities

The African Studies Association Outreach Council

The K-16 Education Outreach Program at the Boston University African Studies Center is one of ten federally funded programs in the United States that are designed to broaden the accessibility of knowledge about Africa. Together, we form the African Studies Association Outreach Council. We collaborate very closely to organize the yearly African Studies Association Teachers’ Workshop.  We also support the Children’s Africana Book Awards (CABA), and the Global Reads webinar series. 

The Boston University African Studies Outreach Program has a history of partnering with Global Exploration for Educators Organization (GEEO), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that runs travel programs designed and discounted for teachers. The goal is to travel the world affordably, earn professional development credit, and bring global understanding into your classroom! With GEEO, educators earn professional development credit and optional graduate credit while seeing the world. GEEO’s trips are 7 to 23 days in length and are designed and discounted to be interesting and affordable for teachers. GEEO also provides teachers educational materials and the structure to help them bring their experiences into the classroom. The trips are open to all nationalities of K-12 and university educators, administrators, retired educators, as well as educators’ guests. The deposit is $350 for each program and then the final payment is due 60 days before departure.

“I will talk about these trips all year in my classes. For so many of my students, my description of my travels will be the only exposure they will have to other countries and other ways of life.“-Teacher Michael Baldwin, who’s first time traveling abroad was with GEEO.

Hope for Africa

Free Choices Program Digital Curriculum for Methods Professors

The Choices Program at Brown University provides Social Studies Methods Professors with a complimentary digital license to any three of its curriculum units.  Digital editions can be used in the Methods classroom as well as in a student teacher’s classroom. Contact Mimi Stephens to request a digital license.  Africa-related units offered by the Choices Program include: Colonization and Independence in Africa;  Nigeria: History, Identity, and Change; and  Freedom in Our Lifetime: South Africa’s Struggle.

Witness Tree Institute of Ghana

The Witness Tree Institute of Ghana was created to engage educators in multidisciplinary learning experiences through travel and exposure to Ghanaian culture, history, and education. The institute provides an immersive two week professional development experience in Ghana for K-12 educators, to deepen their knowledge of African cultures and the impact of African Diasporas in the World, and to explore their own pedagogical competencies.

Experiential education is essential in a world where distance, isolation, media, and individual experiences often affect the way we interpret the world and teach. Through firsthand learning and interactions, the institute provides an authentic experience for individuals to develop skills, perspectives, and thinking habits to enrich their institutions and communities. The institute provides an opportunity to use the lens of social justice to initiate discussions between Ghanaian and North American educators.

National Resource Centers Summer Programs

There are dozens of federally funded National Resource Centers (NRCs) for different world regions at universities nationwide. Many of these universities host summer institutes to help internationalize curriculum for K-12 and higher education educators. Some programs offer limited funding to educators to help defray travel costs for participants.

The Office of Resources for International and Area Studies at the University of California – Berkeley hosts a comprehensive website of these opportunities. Visit the webpage here.