Fredrick Kyalo Manthi

The Prehistory Club based at the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) has in the last 15 years reached-out to over 150,000 thousands high school and university students in Kenya. The activities of the Club which include lectures on prehistory and human evolution have undoubtedly helped in demystifying views held by most Kenyans about human origins and evolution. In 2007 and 2011, with support from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Prehistory Club organized workshops in Nairobi that brought together over 300 history and biology high school teachers from across Kenya. In attendance during the 2011 workshop were two teachers from Uganda, Malawi and Tanzania. The workshops, dubbed ‘Building bridges between prehistory and religion’, enabled teachers share with scientists from across the World their experiences and challenges in teaching prehistory and human evolution. Since a single teacher interacts with hundreds of students, it is believed that the knowledge and experiences the teachers acquired would benefit large numbers of students. Because past outreach proposals have targeted students and teachers from regions neighboring Nairobi, I propose to hold lectures on human evolution in schools in marginalized parts of Kenya including the Lake Turkana Basin from where a bulk of World-famous human fossils have been recovered.