• Andorra, a mountainous country sandwiched between France and Spain.
  
  
• Brunei, an oil-rich Asian nation where people pay no taxes.
  
  
• Burundi, an African country that recently emerged from years of civil war.
  
  
• Congo-Brazzaville, a former French colony west of its larger neighbor, Congo-Kinshasa.
  
  
• Cyprus, a Mediterranean island divided between Greek and Turkish populations.
  
  
• Djibouti, an Islamic state on the horn of Africa.
  
  
• Dominica, a Caribbean island known for its waterfalls and rugged mountains.
  
  
• Maldives, an archipelago of some 1,190 islands in the Indian Ocean.
  
  
• Monaco, a principality famous for its upscale tourism and casino gambling.
  
  
• Montenegro, the world’s newest sovereign state, independent since June 2006.
  
  
• Nauru, a Pacific nation with an area of just 8 square miles (21 square kilometers).
  
  
• São Tomé & Príncipe, a pair of tropical islands off Africa’s west coast.
  
  
• San Marino, a landlocked country completely surrounded by Italy.
  
  
• Seychelles, a group of Indian Ocean islands with African, European, and Asian influences.
  
  
• Vanuatu, a Pacific nation with the world’s largest number of languages per capita.

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1. What Pacific nation, located east of the Philippines, boasts one of the world's most diverse underwater environments, with species that include saltwater crocodiles, dugongs, sharks, sea turtles, giant clams, and stingless jellyfish?
   
   
2. What country is the world’s largest exporter of wool?
   
   
3. What is the indigenous language of Guam?
   
   
4. What country in the Oceania region is the sixth largest nation in the world and has the world’s sixth longest coastline?
   
   
5. What are the two major ethnic groups in Fiji, having roughly equal numbers and together forming 95 percent of the total population?
   
   
6. What country’s most populous island is the capital island of Tarawa, where one-third of the nation's population lives?
   
   
7. What is the most widely spoken language in Papua New Guinea?
   
   
8. What nation consists of two chains of atolls about 130 miles (200 kilometers) apart: the Ratak (Eastern, or Sunrise) chain and the Ralik (Western, or Sunset) chain?
   
   
9. What French dependency was rocked by riots when France resumed nuclear tests in the Pacific in 1995?
   
   
10. Niue is one of the world’s smallest self-governing states, but it also one of the world’s largest islands made of what substance?

1. I-Kiribati (EE-kir-i-BAHSS)—or the people of the nation of Kiribati—speak a Micronesian dialect called Gilbertese or Kiribati. The pronunciation of Kiribati is derived from the local pronunciation of the English word Gilberts. English is the official language but is rarely heard outside of urban South Tarawa. Speaking it in public is considered showing off and is mocked. Even on South Tarawa, people mix English and Gilbertese, using English mostly for words that do not exist in Gilbertese. Older people speak a more difficult and extensive version of Kiribati that younger generations have not retained.
   
   
2. In Palau, a bai is a traditional men's meeting house. These large, wooden, A-frame structures were built entirely by hand and without the aid of nails. Some have stood for hundreds of years. They have palm-leaf roofs and are decorated inside and out with ornate carvings that depict local legends. Though rarely used for functions today, the buildings are considered important links to Palau's traditional culture. The legends depicted on bai walls have more recently been captured through carvings on pieces of wood known as storyboards. The carvings preserve these ancient legends, many of which have an underlying moral lesson.

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• The largest meteorite in the United States was discovered in Oregon in 1902. It weighed about 40,000 pounds.
• Oregon has more ghost towns than any other state.
• The Columbia River Gorge is considered to be one of the best places in the world for windsurfing.
• At 8,000 feet (2,400 m) deep, Hells Canyon is the deepest river gorge in North America.
• Stark’s Vacuum Cleaner Museum in Portland has vacuums dating back to the 1870s.
• Oregon is one of only a few states that have an official state nut. Oregon's state nut is the hazelnut, also known as the filbert.
• Oregon’s state birthday is on Valentine’s Day.

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World Holidays Featured This Month

Rwanda – Liberation Day – July 4
Marks the end of the 1994 genocide, when close to one million people lost their lives.

Cape Verde – Independence Day – July 5
Although an official holiday, it is celebrated only once every five years to cut down on the cost of celebrations.

Guam – Liberation Day – July 21
Marks the island’s liberation from the Japanese in 1944 during World War II.

Egypt – Anniversary of the Revolution – July 23
Commemorates the 1952 revolution, which overthrew the British-supported monarchy and brought to power a group that included future president Abdel Nasser.

Venezuela – Simón Bolivar's Birthday – July 24
Honors Venezuela's liberator and national hero.

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Theme: Ruler of a New Country

Grade level: 9–12

Objective: Students will create a fictional country using sound geographical, historical, and cultural principles and write a CultureGrams country report for that country.

National curriculum standard(s):

National Standards for Social Studies

Human Systems

Culture | Standard C [High School]: Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of culture and cultural diversity, so that the learner can apply an understanding of culture as an integrated whole that explains the functions and interactions of language, literature, the arts, traditions, beliefs and values, and behavior patterns.

People, Places, and Environments | Standard E [High School]: Social studies programs should include experience that provide for the study of people, places, and environments, so that the learner can describe, differentiate, and explain the relationships among various regional and global patterns of geographic phenomena such as landforms, soils, climate, vegetation, natural resources, and population.

Global Connections | Standard B [High School]: Social studies programs should include experience that provide for the study of global connections and interdependence, so that the learner can explain conditions and motivations that contribute to conflict, cooperation, and interdependence among groups, societies, and nations.

Developed by the National Council for the Social Studies

Time requirements
Preparation: 30 minutes
In-class: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Materials
CultureGrams World Edition

Instructions

1. Give each student a copy of a CultureGrams country report and have him or her read it before class.
   
   
2. Conduct an in-class discussion to help students draw connections between categories. Discuss how history or religion impact economy, how land and climate impact transportation, how general attitudes affect visiting, etc.
   
   
3. Assign each student to create his or her own fictitious country of which he or she may choose to be the ruler. Inform students of the following rules:
   
   
4. Students need to follow the natural cause-and-effect principles in geography and history. Meaning, if a student creates a desert-like country, he or she cannot have an economy based on the production of tropical fruits.
   
   
5. The student's CultureGrams report for his or her fictitious country should include all of the same categories and subcategories as an actual CultureGrams report.
   
   
6. Have the students get together in smaller groups (about 4-5 per group) and have them analyze how their countries would get along. Which countries would trade with one another? What political problems might arise? Which country would hold most of the resources? What alliances would develop and why?

Extension activity

• Have the social studies and language arts teachers form a panel to judge the students' CultureGrams reports based on writing and plausible connections between categories (i.e., plausible geography/history scenario). Post the winner on the school web site.

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