Market Place Activity: Why did Mali become a powerful Medieval African Empire?

This market place activity on Medieval Mali has been commissioned by the History Academy as part of a series looking at African Medieval Empires and Kingdoms. This fun and interactive lesson is designed to get students of all abilities up and out of their chairs, collaborating and working together to investigate this exciting and largely ignored topic.

The Empire of Mali was one of the largest empires in Medieval West African History spanning from the Atlantic Coast to central parts of the Sahara desert. Founded by the Lion King in 1214, it had doubled in size by the reign of Mansa Musa, who is offen sited at the richest man in history. He became king because his brother abdicated because he wanted to sail the oceans and ‘pursue knowledge and discovery.’ The historical evidence suggests that he reached America over 180 years before Christopher Columbus . The education system and universities of Timbuktu and Gao were famous throughout the Medieval World and were set up 100 years before both Oxford and Cambridge.

This lesson is aimed at KS3 and was designed originally for a middle ability Year 7 class. We have included a range of different activities that you can sellect for your classes from knowledge recall questions, heads and tails, missing words, word search, knowledge quizzes, review triangles and an essay question along with supporting activities.

When you purchase this resource you will be able to download a 36 slide PowerPoint Presentation which includes aims, objectives, starters, plenaries, templates for photocopying, tasks, activities, video links, information slides as well as historical sources. T We have also uploaded the PowerPoint as PDFs, just in case you do not have access to Microsoft Office. Both files can be edited so that you can customise them to suit your students.

The aims and objectives of this lesson are:

Theme: Medieval African History
Know: How was Mali governed and ruled?
Understand: How did trade help to make Mali rich?
Evaluate: Why did Mali become a powerful African empire?
Skills: Source Analysis, Cause, Consequence & Collaboration

WILF – What Am I Looking For?
Can You Describe: How was Mali governed and ruled?
Can You Explain: How did trade help to make Mali rich?
Can You Evaluate: What made Mali become a powerful empire?

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Kind Regards

Roy