This lesson plan includes two activities that introduce students to the geography and people of the Sahel region and to the challenges and conflicts faced by the inhabitants.

In Part 1, students are introduced to the central figure from the video Farming the Desert, Yacouba Sawadogo, a farmer from Burkina Faso who has made great strides in pushing back the desert and improving his lands. In Part 2, students participate in a jigsaw activity in which they explore five aspects of the geography of the Sahel through research, including the physical and human characteristics of the Sahel, the economic interdependence of humans on the Sahel, cooperation and conflict in the Sahel, human modifications to the Sahel, and how the changing conditions of the Sahel are impacting human systems.