Provide students with the Student Context and time to review it briefly. Then, depending on access to classroom technology, divide students up in order to ensure that each student or group has access to a tablet or computer for this online activity.

If you have not already done so, introduce your students to the Gold Road Map using the detailed instructions and student handouts on How to use The Gold Road available through the Digital Toolkit. Allow students to briefly explore independently or in small groups using and navigating the tools on the site. 

In order to complete the map quest:

• Share or display the following link with students-Trade/Artifacts or have students go to http://thegoldroad.org/map.aspx# . Turn on the Trade Routes and select Trade/Artifacts under Categories and all three time periods.
  • Note that depending on the size of display students may have to navigate or toggle to see the search bar on the left and the “View Trade Routes” option on the right.  
  • When layered appropriately students should be able to see routes similar to the image found below. .
  • If all timeframes are selected there should be ~25 markers shown that correspond to different trade/artifacts symbols. 
• Ask students to identify goods and resources that were traded
  • Important objects/artifacts you could highlight are: Gold, leather goods, kola nuts, camels, pottery, salt, dates, cloth, cowrie shells

• Ask students to turn off the Trade Objects and turn on the Places button at the top of the page while keeping the trade routes on. Then, ask students to identify and record cities that were involved in the trade routes
• Important cities you could highlight are: Timbuktu, Taghaza, Tadmekka Essouk, Sijilmasa, Kumbi Saleh, Awdaghost, Marrakech, and Fez.