Curious about current K-12 Offerings from the South Asia Center?
Contact our Outreach Coordintor: Sharifa Halimi at shalimi@sas.upenn.edu
Philadelphia World Heritage Toolkit
As of November 2015, Philadelphia is officially a World Heritage City joining the ranks of cities such as Shanghai, Amsterdam, and Istanbul. The content of this document is an exciting journey through the history, culture, and people that continually create and reinvent our city. The Tool Kit is designed for varied grades and subjects in K–12 as a vehicle and idea-starter for teaching the value of World Heritage to our children.
This document was created by teachers, like you, who desire to educate youth on Philadelphia’s heritage as well as underrepresented world regions. The Tool Kit is a product of a joint venture between Global Philadelphia Association, the City of Philadelphia, and the University of Pennsylvania’s South Asia Center, Middle East Center and Center for East Asian Studies.
We hope this collection of ideas inspire, within our future ambassadors, a deeper sense of civic pride and global citizenship. For more information on the World Heritage City Project and to support these efforts visit worldheritagephl.org/
Workshops and Summer Institutes
The Center organizes a variety of workshops, many of which are offered in collaboration with other Penn departments and centers, such as the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cinema Studies, the Annenberg School for Communication and other National Resource Centers at Penn. We also look forward to developing workshops that suit the specific needs of a particular school/district. Workshop participants are provided with information packets containing lesson-plans and relevant readings. Participating teachers can opt to receive ACT 48 or other state credit equivalents for attending these programs with prior confirmation from the South Asia Center.
Access past Summer Institute and general curriculum materials
UPenn Summer Institute website
Master Teacher Fellowship in Global Education
The Master Teacher Fellowship in Global Education will be awarded to two teachers each April. The winning fellows must be K-14 teachers in the Delaware Valley who have shown substantial commitment to incorporating global studies into the school or classroom.
Each fellow will receive a $500 stipend to be used for conference/training registration, travel to a conference/training, classroom materials, etc. The Master Teacher Fellows will serve as education ambassadors for the University of Pennsylvania's South Asia and Middle East Centers from April 2015 to April 2016 and lead one public workshop for pre-service and current educators. Upon completion of the fellowship, a brief report will be required.
**Educators from HBCUs, MSIs & Community Colleges, people of color, people with disabilities, women, and LGBT candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
Next application date: TBD
Day Trips; Workshops; Museum Tours
Special programs for students can be scheduled in conjunction with your specific needs. These might include a tour of the University Museum, workshops on South Asia related issues, attending a class on South Asia, and other programs to assist you in teaching about South Asia.
Invitation to Ongoing South Asian Cultural and Academic Events at Penn
The South Asia Center throughout the year brings to Penn campus internationally renowned scholars and performers who share their expertise and talent at events which are open to all. Almost all of these are free, though prior registration may be required for some of these. We would love to have your students attend these events which can be found listed on our Events page.
Conduct research on South Asia at the University of Pennsylvania library
We will be happy to facilitate your students’ access to the South Asia resources available at the Penn library to do their research. Please contact South Asia librarian Jef Pierce for more information.
The South Asia Center launched our collaborative global education online initiative, Kids on Earth: India Edition by Howard Blumenthal.
This year the South Asia Center worked with our partners at UPIASI to organize Howard’s travel to South Asia for the development of an India segment for his K-12 educational program Kids on Earth. From his trip Howard was able to generate dozens of global education video’s for both teachers and students focused on India. This program was moved entirely online due to COVID-19 but now has the capacity to reach more students and teachers than we originally thought possible!
Howard Blumenthal created and produced the Peabody Award and Emmy Award winning PBS television series, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? He is the founder of Kids on Earth, as well as a Senior Scholar at The University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center. He is the author more than 20 books about history, time travel, creativity and more, and a former syndicated newspaper columnist for The New York Times Syndicate. Since 2017, Howard has grown Kids on Earth to become the world’s largest library of one-on-one video interviews with children and teenagers (mostly nine to 14-years-old). Kids on Earth’s constantly expanding Vimeo site presents more than 800 videos recorded in England, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Kosovo, Uganda, Hong Kong, the United States, Brazil, Uruguay, Cambodia and Chile. We are so proud to be able to include India in this work.
In this Special India Edition you will find:
Students Special Edition which includes 12 videos less than 5 minutes each of Indian children discussing culture, history, language, sports and what it’s like being a kid in India. These clips can be shown directly to students and include brief introductions by Howard so students have more context to the messages delivered by our primary informants.
The Teacher Special Edition portion of the series has been specifically designed to show K-12 educators how the online tool can be used in their classrooms. This includes critical background relevant for educators and their students.
