The third annual Teach Central America Week (October 4 - 10, 2021) is quickly approaching!

Each week, in preparation for #TeachCentralAmerica Week, we will spotlight a country in the region and share related resources. This week we share resources for teaching about Honduras.

In this lesson for K-8th grade, students learn about three different animals — a bird, a frog, and a butterfly (the motmot of El Salvador, the exquisite spike-thumb frog of Honduras, and the owl butterfly from Guatemala). All these creatures are indigenous to Central America and help us understand the region’s ecosystems. Using visual art, the lesson gives students the opportunity to explore in-depth facts about each animal, while integrating an arts component where students are encouraged to draw the animals and design their own books to scaffold learning. 

In workshops on Central America, we often begin with the question, “How many Central Americans of note can you name?" Below, read about two Hondurans. You can find these bios in Central America: An Introductory Lesson.

Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores was an environmental organizer. In 1993, Cáceres became a student activist and cofounded the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) to help Lenca Indigenous communities like hers improve their livelihoods, gain territorial rights, and fight illegal development. In 2006, residents of Rio Blanco asked COPINH for help to fight against the Agua Zarca Dam on a sacred Lenca river. They lodged appeals to state, national, and international authorities, but the government forged ahead. In April 2013, she organized a road blockade to prevent access to the dam site. For over a year, the Lenca people used a system of alerts to stay informed and maintain a peaceful presence at the site.

Fredi Onan Vicen Peña is a coffee farmer in Honduras. His family farm has produced quality coffee for a very long time, but recently, his farm has faced extreme weather patterns like he's never seen before. Climate change has wiped out entire harvests, disrupted growing cycles, and promoted the spread of pests. His plants are now plagued with coffee rust.

Beginning with the first coup in Central America in three decades, Resistencia: The Fight for the Aguan Valley picks up the story of the farmers who responded to the coup by taking over the plantations of the most powerful man in Honduras. The camera follows three of the movement’s protagonists and one brilliant journalist from the capital city over the four years between the coup and the elections that the farmers hope will return democracy to Honduras. Produced by Makila Usine Médiatique and Naretiv Productions.

Since 1978, the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) has served as the representative organization and a leading voice in Honduras for the self-determination and dignity of the Garífuna people in Honduras, a matrilineal people who are both Indigenous and Afro-descendent, whose ancestral territory in Honduras is under constant threat from African palm plantations, Canadian and U.S. tourist operations, mining, energy projects, and drug trafficking.

While the Black Lives Matter movement was flooding streets in cities all over the U.S. following the police murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others, in Honduras, OFRANEH was lifting up the message that “Garífuna lives matter, too” following the disappearance of four of their leaders in July 2020. In early 2021, OFRANEH announced the formation of the Garífuna Research and Search Committee for the Disappeared of Triunfo de la Cruz, “SUNLA” or “Enough” in English.

Help us give teachers and parents the tools to teach Central American history and multicultural education. Give today.

See our project advisors.