🌍 🇨🇫 WEEKLY WORLD HERITAGE: St. Floris National Park in the Central African Republic

The landlocked Central African Republic is one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week, so why not spend a few minutes today learning about one of the Central African Republic’s World Heritage Sites: Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park.

World Heritage Sites are not only places of historical importance in human culture, they are also places of exceptional biological and scientific value:

With an area of 1,740,000 ha, Manovo-Gounda St Floris is the largest park in the Central African savannas. Straddling the two ecological zones, Manovo-Gounda St Floris National Park owes its importance to its rich flora and fauna. It is home to many endangered species including the black rhino, elephant, hippopotamus and red-fronted gazelle as well as large concentrations of herbivores.

This Park is an interesting example of a “crossroads” where the species from savanna communities of East and West Africa, as well as those of the forest communities of the South, cross paths. The Park is a valuable area for the study of environmental changes occurring throughout the Sahel and Sudan under pressure from drought and overgrazing. (World Heritage Centre #475)

Sadly, extensive poaching and violence in the region has led this important park to be included on the current list of World Heritage Sites in Danger.

You can find a gallery of additional photos of Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park in the Central African Republic on the World Heritage Centre’s website.

World Heritage Sites are cultural or natural landmarks of international significance, selected by their home countries and recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. More than a thousand such sites have been designated in over 160 countries, and we feature one every Wednesday, drawn from one of our homeschool countries-of-the-week. You can find a complete list of World Heritage Sites online at the World Heritage Centre’s website and in Wikipedia.

The World Heritage Centre also has a free and comprehensive World Heritage education kit for teachers, as well as a wonderful full-color wall map of World Heritage Sites, available for the cost of shipping. Why not add them both to your own homeschool library. 🗺

What world treasures are you and your students exploring in your homeschool this Cygnus Term? 😊

❡ The great globe itself: This is one of our regular Homeschool Geography posts featuring cultural and natural sites of international importance. Print your own copy of our River Houses World Heritage Calendar and follow along with us as we tour the planet, and add your name to our weekly mailing list to get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 🌐

❡ Print this little lesson: Down at the bottom of this post you’ll find a special “Print” button that will let you create a neat and easy-to-read copy of this little lesson, and it will even let you edit and delete sections you don’t want or need (such as individual images or footnotes). Give it a try today! 🖨

❡ Books in the running brooks: You can always turn to your River Houses almanac, atlas, and history encyclopedia for more information about any of our countries-of-the-week. The almanac has a lengthy section with detailed profiles of all the nations of the world; the endpapers of the atlas are indexes that will show you where all of the individual national and regional maps may be found; the history encyclopedia has a comprehensive collection of national histories in an appendix; and you can find additional illustrations, flags, and other mentions through the indexes in each of these volumes. For an ideal little lesson, just write the name of the Weekly World Heritage Site on your homeschool bulletin board, find its location in your atlas, read the WHC’s brief description aloud, look at a picture or two, and you’re done. Over the course of the year, without even realizing it, your students will absorb a wealth of new historical, geographical, and cultural information. 🇨🇫

❡ Homeschool calendars: We have a whole collection of free, printable, educational homeschool calendars and planners available on our main River Houses calendar page. They will help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. Give them a try today! 🗓

❡ Support our work: If you enjoy our educational materials, please support us by starting your regular Amazon shopping from our very own homeschool teaching supplies page. When you click through from our page, any purchase you make earns us a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for helping us to keep going and growing! 🛒

❡ Join us! The aim of the River Houses project is to create a network of friendly local homeschool support groups — local chapters that we call “Houses.” Our first at-large chapter, Headwaters House, is now forming and is open to homeschoolers everywhere. Find out how to become one of our founding members on the Headwaters House membership page. 🏡