Resources
Our goal is to empower educators and learners and each of these resources, including lesson plans and virtual workshops, was created with this in mind. All of our lesson plans are available through the California Teachers Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education.
Cambodian Genocide Lesson Plans
Cambodian Genocide: Recipes for Survival
In this lesson, students explore how food, memory, and cultural preservation intersect in the aftermath of genocide. Using excerpts and recipes from Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes by Chantha Nguon, students examine how traditional cooking can serve as both a form of personal healing and cultural resistance to erasure. Through readings, discussions, and creative activities, students reflect on the role food plays in shaping identity, particularly for refugees and genocide survivors. The lesson contextualizes the Cambodian Genocide and encourages students to think critically about resilience, trauma, and storytelling through everyday practices like cooking.
The Cambodian Genocide Through Testimony (1 Unit, 3 Lessons)
This unit includes a historical overview of the Cambodian Genocide followed by three lesson plans, "Setting the Scene for Genocide"; "Cambodian Genocide and the Destruction of Family Life under the Khmer Rouge"; and "Cambodian Genocide: A Communist Genocide". The lessons are inspired by the Channy Chhi Laux's memoir Short Hair Detention, and her hope that her story might one day empower students to fight oppression.
Words Matter: Oral Propaganda and the Cambodian Genocide
This lesson, created in collaboration with the Shoah Foundation's IWitness program, integrates survivor testimony and historical context in an engaging and interactive 60 minute lesson.
A Photographic Memory: The Power of Photography and Identity Making After Genocide
In this lesson, students examine the significance of photographs as historical and personal artifacts. Students will analyze the role photos play in fortifying identity, preserving history, and telling stories across generations. To do so, students are asked to reflect on their own relationships with photographs. Using photos as a bridge between their lives and the experiences of genocide victims, students will learn from Dr. Seang M. Seng, a survivor of the Cambodian Genocide who risked his life to save a single photograph of his father.
Darfur Genocide Lesson Plans
Darfur Genocide: The Promise to Prevent and Punish
This lesson examines the UN Genocide Convention—adopted in 1948 and now ratified by most nations—by asking whether defining and condemning “genocide” has practical power to prevent or stop mass atrocities. Using the Darfur case, students closely read Articles I and II of the Convention, analyze U.S. government documents and survivor testimony, and evaluate the Convention’s strengths and limits in practice. The unit centers on Secretary of State Colin Powell’s 2004 determination of genocide in Darfur as a pivotal moment to discuss political, legal, and moral barriers to enforcement. Students will conclude by weighing the Convention’s symbolic and legal roles in holding perpetrators accountable.
Rohingya Genocide
Rohingya Genocide: Heeding the Warning Signs
In this lesson, using survivor testimony from Wai Wai Nu and a historical timeline, students examine how discrimination, exclusion, dehumanization, militarization, and movement restrictions developed over time prior to the Rohingya Genocide. Students identify warning signs of genocide, analyze cause-and-effect relationships, and consider actions that individuals, governments, and international organizations can take to prevent future atrocities.
Virtual Workshops
"Teaching with Testimony: The Cambodian Genocide"
This session, done in partnership with Facing History and Ourselves, offers strategies and resources to help students connect with difficult histories through the voices of those who lived them. Author and chef Channy Laux discusses her experiences of the Cambodian Genocide.
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