AfroFuturism Challenge Kit
Engage students in a meaningful exploration of identity, history, culture, and celebration as they design Black History Month/African Heritage Month for their school community. Guided by the imaginative and forward-looking vision of Afrofuturism, students empower themselves to shape a future that honors the past, while imagining what’s possible for the future. This resource was created in 2024.
“Afrofuturism can inspire and empower Black students by integrating cultural, historical, and futuristic elements into education, promoting creative problem-solving and innovative thinking.”
- Ingrid LaFleur, a globally recognized curator, design innovationist and Afrofuturist
A note and message from educators who designed this Kit
This kit was created by Black educators, for Black students, and it belongs in every school. Through this Challenge Kit Black students are seen, heard, and appreciated as it challenges deficit narratives to centre Black identity, offering a positively affirming and liberatory space for students to grow. This is not a one-off assembly or a single lesson. You and your students are meant to use it over time, whether that's from early in the school year to design a meaningful Black History Month and beyond, or starting in February and continuing until June.
The AfroFuturism Challenge Kit asks something substantial of the adults and community leading it: the willingness to sit with hard truths about erased history, to help students understand and challenge deficit narratives, and to centre Black students. Teachers and school leaders who bring this kit into their communities should be ready to navigate those conversations honestly. Used well, this builds the kind of humanizing, affirming community where every student can see themselves as truly belonging.
The two videos below explain the content and logistics of this Challenge Kit by the educators.
Looking Back to Look Forward
Every year around the world and in our classrooms we observe African Heritage Month also known as Black History Month. During the month of February, we too often only talk about the past, and often historical stories rooted in trauma. Some folks also celebrate Black Futures Month, shifting the narrative into how to celebrate our present and invest in Black futures. It’s important to remember, and for many to experience, that African and Black history is about more than just slavery and tough times.
This Challenge Kit focuses on Afrofuturism and Heritage. Afrofuturism uses science-fiction and fantasy frames to reimagine the African diaspora’s past and envision hopeful, technologically advanced futures where Black communities thrive; often expressed through art, film, literature, music, fashion, and more. Students centre community voices and design futures that honour history and possibility. Heritage is the living thread of traditions, stories, foods, clothing, places, and practices passed down across generations.
Activities Include:
What is Heritage? Explore the concept of heritage, its various aspects (cultural, historical, natural, built, and intangible), and its importance in shaping communities.
Archiving as Resistance, focuses on the importance of archival work and historical documentation in preserving Black history and challenging dominant narratives. It introduces concepts like archaeology and archiving, and explores often overlooked Black communities in Canada.
Reframing Perspectives: Mental Models of Africa and Blackness, challenge and reframe perspectives on Africa and Blackness. Use visual comparisons to confront common misconceptions about African countries and explore how media representation shapes perceptions and who benefits from these misrepresentations.
AfroFuturism: Dreams and Hope, introduce students to the concept of Afrofuturism and its role in imagining and shaping Black futures. It connects the idea of Sankofa (looking to the past to inform the future) with Afrofuturism's vision of technologically advanced and hopeful futures for Black people.
“I am using this Challenge Kit as a starting point to offer the Deconstructing Anti-Black Racism next academic year (25/26) for senior students. This process has lent much of the student's voice in helping construct the course outline. I would like to continue to use this specific challenge as a way of keeping the course culturally relevant to students.”
- High School Teacher
“The power of doing this in my classroom was the criticality and the knowledge that came from my non-Black students. I only had two Black students in my classroom, and myself, so all the rest were non-Black. The power that it gave my Black students to see that their non-Black classmates were wanting to learn about them and the history, was unmatched. They started naming microaggressions and stereotypes that were happening throughout the world and became allies.”
- Elementary Teacher
Access this Challenge Kit
This Challenge Kit includes:
Facilitator Notebook
Letter to Students
Teacher Slide Deck
Capture Your Thinking Handout
And inquiry-based activities to ignite curiosity
There are 2 sets of resources with this Kit. Mix and match the resources to engage students in deep thinking and problem solving.
Inquiry-Based Activities (in Zip file)
This series of activities covers the themes of heritage, archiving as resistance, and reframing perspectives.
Activity 1: What is Heritage?
Activity 2: Archiving as Resistance
Activity 3: Reframing Perspectives: Mental Models of Africa and Blackness
Activity 4: AfroFuturism: Dreams and Hopes
Interviews for Students →
This Challenge Kit brings together voices on Black excellence. The series features:
Kim Bernhardt: Labour Arbitrator, after spending her career as a human rights and labour law lawyer
Racheal Saunders: Transportation Engineer, City of Toronto
Queen Kukoyi & Nico Taylor: Oddside Arts Co-Lead
Hannah Permaul Flores: Poet and fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, aspiring environmental epidemiologist
A Peek Inside
This Challenge Kit is our first to explicitly use art as a way of exploring and co-designing African Heritage Month. Students will leverage Afrofuturism; a creative genre found in books, music, art, and more to imagine the future while centering Black culture and heritage. A great example of Afrofuturism that many students would know is Black Panther.
Students’ guiding challenge is:
How might we make African Heritage Month and beyond meaningful to our school community?
Curriculum-Connected Activity Plans
Reframing Perspectives: Mental Models of Africa and Blackness →
This Challenge Kit was designed by
Shelly Campbell
Shelly Campbell is a dynamic multidisciplinary artist, poet, and educator. Her passion for youth empowerment, creative education, and community building drives her work in both the arts and education sectors. She holds a deep commitment to fostering environments where students, particularly those from marginalized communities, can thrive. Through her work as an arts educator, she also explores Afrofuturism, using it as a lens to imagine alternative futures for Black communities. Her poetry and interactive installations have been showcased internationally.
Alexiis Stephen
Alexiis Stephen is an educator, principal, leader and innovator who is passionate about transforming learning and building inclusive communities where every individual can thrive. Her work is grounded in transformational and inclusive leadership, with a focus on fostering cultures of equity, belonging, achievement and well-being.
Alexiis is passionate about educational innovation, curriculum design and reimagining how communities solve complex challenges. Her emerging work on Problem Solving Communities integrates equitable data gathering with Afrofuturistic principles, encouraging leaders to imagine possibilities beyond inherited assumptions while centering the strengths, voices and lived experiences of the communities they serve.
She holds a Master of Education in Social Justice Education and is committed to bridging research and practice by equipping educators and leaders with practical strategies that create meaningful, lasting impact.
Tynesha Hibbert
For the past 10 years, Tynesha Hibbert has been an impactful elementary teacher with the TDSB, specializing in the junior division. Her teaching philosophy is rooted in a strong dedication to student achievement, equity, diversity, anti-racism, and anti-oppression, always striving to create inclusive and empowering learning environments. Beyond teaching, Tynesha is actively involved with the Toronto Blue Jays and the City of Toronto. Her personal interests include biking and, despite a previous wrist injury, she bravely and gingerly attempts to snowboard.
Mubarak Baker
Mubarak is a TDSB educator and co-writer of the I-Think Afrofuturism Challenge Kit. He is passionate about empowering students to become active designers of their own learning by engaging them with authentic, real-world problems. He considers it an honour to contribute to a resource that uses Afrofuturism to shift narratives around African Heritage and Black culture. By acknowledging the past while boldly imagining the future, he believes this kit helps foster inclusivity, affirmation, and a deep sense of belonging for students.
