This enquiry focuses once again on the medieval Mali Empire.
This time you will explore the pilgrimage undertaken by the famous Mansa Musa in 1324-5.
Students are introduced to Musa via the Catalan Atlas, and asked to speculate about the reasons for his long journey.
Why might such a powerful ruler have chosen to leave his kingdom for an extended period of time?
Next, students develop their understanding of the pilgrimage by organising information into chronological order, before they delve deeper into the aims and outcomes of the journey.
They learn that Musa was motivated by a combination of political, economic and religious reasons.
Perhaps they might conclude that, although the journey was ostensibly a religious pilgrimage, Musa had rather less noble aims in journeying across the Sahara, too.
Finally, students are encouraged to use sophisticated causation language in order to construct their conclusions.
Download lesson
- Lesson presentation: PowerPoint
- Lesson write-up: PDF
- Worksheet 1: PDF
