As a teacher you are looking for ways to excite, inspire, and motivate students. The Caravan of Light is a real-life Indiana Jones adventure with built in academic tools. You can use these tools in the classroom to supplement subjects you are already teaching:

• language arts
• reading comprehension
• geography
• biology
• animal behavior
• group interaction
• problem solving
• student research
• projects that meet the needs of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learners.

As a special resource teacher working in Gifted and Talented Education programs, I'm collaborating with other educators to turn this section into a teachers resource. During April and May of 2004 we will be adding exercises to this section for your use in the coming school year.

• visual: like to see information
• auditory: would rather hear information
• kinesthetic (hands-on): need physical involvement with subject
• group: prefer to work with others
• solo: likes to work alone

Exercises are labeled with a V for visual, A for auditory, K for kinesthetic, G for group, and S for solo. If an exercise is predominantly visual and solo it will be labeled V–S. Some exercises include multiple learning styles. We hope this will help teachers choose a balance of learning channels to meet the needs of different students.

The Exercises

Questions, questions, questions–Reading Comprehension

Students take tests all their lives to determine how much information they retain. This exercise helps students focus on important information by learning to think like a teacher. Students make up one or more test questions for each page in the learning center. (A–S) Have students in grades 2-3 do one or two questions/page. Grades 4-and up can handle 3 or more questions/page. Students write the test question on a 3x5 card with the following 4 pieces of information:

1. The section the question comes from (i.e., camel biology)
2. Student's name
3. Question (multiple choice, true/false, fill in the blank)
4. The answer to the question on the back of the card

Once the questions are created, you can do the following:

• Assemble all of a child's questions into a self-test. See how they do on their own test a week later. (A–S)
• Have students work in groups to pick the best questions. These questions are assembled into a general test for the class. (A–G)
• Classroom Trivial Pursuit. Divide the class into teams. Put test questions that have been chosen as "good" questions into a bag. The teacher or a student acts as a moderator. You could pick a student moderator based on the child who has the most questions picked by the class. On a team of 3-5 students, each is given three pennies (chits). When the team is asked a question, the person who is chosen to answer it puts one of their pennies on the table. When a member uses up their pennies, another member that still has pennies must attempt to answer the question. This encourages everyone to participate. If your have 3 or more teams, the questions are delivered in a round robin format: team 1, team 2, team 3 then back to team 1. Score is kept for which team gets the most answers right. The moderator uses the answers to the questions on the back of the cards to make this determination. (A–G)

Finding the word–Language Arts

Students pick words from the learning center that are unfamiliar. Then they do a dictionary search, keeping a log of their discovered words and the definitions. (A–S)

Illustrating a point–Art

Students pick an event from the trip journal and illustrate it. (V–K–S) Show the pictures to the class to see if they can figure out what part of the journal the picture illustrates. (V–G)

As an alternative to drawing, students can make a diorama of an event that occurs on the trip. (V–K–S)

Food Culture–Diversity

The Caravan of Light will travel through India, Nepal, and Tibet. Have children bring an ethnic food to class that comes from one of these areas. Have an Indian-Nepalese-Tibetian potluck. Schools with a diverse student population may have families from the areas we are traveling through. These families may be interested in sharing their culture through food. (K–G)

Which Way?–Geography and Map Reading

Students in grades 1-2 can locate the countries we will travel through on a globe. Use the overview map in the Maps section to find our intended route. (V–S)

Grades 3 and up can refer to an atlas and trace the route our expedition will cover. (V–S)

When using an atlas, students can look for points of interest along the route and do an encyclopedia search to find facts about geography and culture. Three interesting geographical facts might include: The caravan route passes by Mount Everest the tallest mountain in the world at 29,035 feet. The height of Mt. Everest was changed recently, why? The Taj Mahal is on our route. It has been called one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. Who built it and why? We will cross over the Ganges River. This river is visited by large numbers of religious pilgrims. Why do worshipers come to this river? Have students present their facts to the class in an oral report. (V–K–S)

Grades 5 and up can learn to use different maps that show elevation, population density, rainfall patterns and so on to learn more about using maps to gain information (V–S). Find the answers to practical questions like:

• What is the lowest and what is the highest elevation we will encounter on our trip?
• What temperature range can we expect to encounter in Bikaner (India) in September, Kathmandu (Nepal) in October, and Lhasa (Tibet) in November?
• What area will we pass through with the highest density of people?

The Science of Survival–Science (K-G/S)

Expedition members must know how to survive in harsh conditions. This makes it important to wear the right clothing. The following experiment is about material. You can do these experiments as a group or as individuals. Get a cotton sock and a sock made out of polypropylene (other common names, polypro, pile, fleece). Ideally, the socks should be the same thickness. Weigh the socks and record the weight. Submerge both socks in water. Then let them drip excess water for five minutes. Now weigh each sock on a scale. Does one retain more water than the other. How could this be important in the choice of clothing material you choose? Now wrap each sock around a thermometer so that the thermometer has the same amount of material covering it. Use a hair dryer set to cool, direct the air stream evenly over both socks. Is the temperature registered for the cotton sock different than the polypro sock?

Expedition Math–Math (A–S)

On an expedition there are many practical math problems.

• The money used in India is called the rupee. One US dollar is worth about 50 rupees. If you are buying a camel, and the seller asks for 25,000 rupees, how many US dollars would you pay?
• A camel eats about 20 lbs of food every day. If you have four camels and have to carry camel food for a week, how many pounds of camel food will you have to carry for that week.
• If camels travel 3 m.p.h., how many miles can a camel travel in a 6 hour day.
• In the countries we travel through, they use the metric system for measuring distance, weight, and temperature. Convert 100 degrees Farenheit to Celsius. Convert 20 kilometers to miles. Convert 1 kilogram to pounds.

Indiana Jones in the Library–Research (A–S)

Being knowledgable about the creatures you will meet on an expedition is always wise. Here's a list of some of the animals that are not included in the learning center but we may meet on the trip. Students can do research to find out more about these animals and make a presentation to the class in an oral report. Here you will find the common name, the scientific name in parenthesis, and a single fact to get students started.

• Jungle Cat (Felis chaus): a strong swimmer
• Striped Hyena (Hyaena hyena): can eat and digest bones
• Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxrus hermaphroditus): likes drinking the fermented juice found in palm trees
• Sloth Bear (Melurus ursinus): a gap in his front teeth allows him to suck up his favorite food–termites and ants
• Golden Jackal (Canis aureus): parents regurgitate meals for their young
• Indian Giant Squirrel (Ratufa indica): can leap 20 feet
• Hanuman langur (Semnopitherus entellus): revered as a Hindu deity and held sacred
• Asiatic Elephant (Elephas maximus): smaller ears than an African elephant
• Leopard (Panthera pardus): leopards hunt within miles of big cities
• Chital (Axis axis): can run 40 m.p.h.
• Nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus): males fight by kneeling and lunging with their horns
• Indian Darter (Anhinga melanogaster): swims with only its head and neck above water
• Purple Swamp Hen (Porphyrio porphyrio): will eat the eggs and young of other water birds
• Hoopoe (Upupa epops): maintains one of the stinkiest nests of any bird
• Golden Tree Snake (Chrysopelea ornata): spreads it's rib cage to glide between trees
• Russels Viper (Daboia russelli): one of the most deadly snakes to humans in Asia

Caravan Riddles–Creative Thinking (A–G–S)

At the end of some sections in the Learning Center, you will find Caravan Riddles. These are open-ended questions. There are often no obvious answers. Use them to stimulate creative thinking. They can be a topic for group brain-storming sessions or solo essay questions.