Cold War – Ed Methods

October 4, 2015October 11, 2015

The Dog That Started The Space Race

The Dog That Started The Space Race

By John Buckley
5th Grade

Develop Historical Skills:
Sourcing and Contextualization

Essential Question:
What were the reasons Laika was sent into space and what impact did it have on U.S. and Soviet relations?

Laika’s Journey to Space and the Cold War

American News Reel from 1957

Laika’s Journey to Space and the Cold War
Historical Documents: Discus the images as a class and their author’s perspective, place in history, and motive.
John Buckley

Laika on a Soviet Postage Stamp

Laika as a Cartoon Character Hero

New York Times Newspaper Headline

Key Vocabulary Words
(To accompany article in worksheet form.) Discuss key vocabulary words as a class before having students break up into small groups to discuss the article and discussion questions.

Cold War: intense rivalry after World War II between the Soviet Union and its satellites and the democratic countries of the Western world, under the leadership of the United States.

Space Race: The competitive nature of the nations involved in space exploration.

Arms Race: Competition between countries to achieve superiority in quantity and quality of military arms.

Euthanised: To put an animal to death to end suffering or for convenience.

Depletion: The reduction in the number or quantity of something.

R–7 Sustainer: A key part of the Soviet Rocket.

ICBM: Intercontinental-Ballistic Missile, a rocket or missile type of missile that can fly from one continent to another
Source
Laika’s Journey to Space
*Give Students worksheet below to read and discuss in small groups.

“Laika 1954 – November 3, 1957) was a Soviet space dog who became one of the first animals in space, and the first animal to orbit the Earth. Laika, a stray dog from the streets of Moscow, was selected to be the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 that was launched into outer space on November 3, 1957.
Little was known about the impact of spaceflight on living creatures at the time of Laika’s mission, and the technology to de-orbit had not yet been developed, therefore Laika’s survival was not expected. Some scientists believed humans would be unable to survive the launch or the conditions of outer space, so engineers viewed flights by animals as a necessary precursor to human missions. The experiment aimed to prove that a living passenger could survive being launched into orbit and endure weightlessness, paving the way for human spaceflight and providing scientists with some of the first data on how living organisms react to spaceflight environments.
Laika died within hours from overheating, possibly caused by a failure of the central R-7 sustainer to separate from the payload. The true cause and time of her death were not made public until 2002; instead, it was widely reported that she died when her oxygen ran out on day six or, as the Soviet government initially claimed, she was euthanized prior to oxygen depletion.”
First Animals in Space

Discussion Questions
Scaffolding questions for students to use with documents:
1. Who made the video? When? And why?
2. Why did the Soviet Union want to send animals into space?
3. Was the United States alarmed about this event? And if so, why?
4. Did the event cause any fear or anxiety in United States? If yes, why?
5. If you were the Country’s leader, would you have sent Laika into space?
6. Did this event increase or decrease tensions in the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union?
Brief description of how the documents and scaffolding questions should reinforce the targeted historic skill(s)

This will allow students to discuss and grasp the background, context, and motivation of all parties involved. It will help students further understand the scope of historical events in proper framework.

Reflection: As it relates to the SHEG lesson model, with this lesson I tried to focus on sourcing and contextualization in the lesson design process. The challenges I faced in preparing this lesson plan were making sure that the education piece is placed properly in the educational process. Meaning: The children would need some preparation work before hand concerning Space Exploration, Cold War, etc. etc. I do think it provides the opportunity to help intorduce 5th graders to not just a dog, but an opportunity to look “behind the curtain” of politics and world events and realize they are never exactly what they seem to be. Teaching historical thinking skills and critical analysis is essential in proper educational formation as they move towards adulthood.

October 3, 2015October 3, 2015

One Minute to Midnight: Decision-Making During the Cuban Missile Crisis

Target Students: 11th and 12th grade

Historical thinking skills: This lesson develops students’ sourcing and contextualization skills.

Essential question: On what bases did the US and USSR make decisions leading up to and during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Context within Curriculum: To participate in this lesson students must be familiar with the broad contours of post-WWII global politics. In particular, students should be able to describe key differences between the US and USSR, be aware of the existence of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and have basic knowledge of nuclear weapons.

Primary documents:

All sources via The Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center at

Key Documents

Scaffolding questions:

Who (or what) wrote/produced these documents?
- How does the identity of the author change the way we interpret the documents?
- What were the author’s goals or purposes?
These documents are very different from one another. How does their form affect the way we interact with them as historians?
Who would have read these documents and what kind of information would they have wanted from them? How might that information have been used?
What can we infer about the relationship between Cuba and the USSR from Castro’s letter? Further, what do we know about US-Cuba relations at this time?

Goals: Students will synthesize what they know about Cold War history (context), international relations, and that which they can infer using these documents to develop an explanation of the Cuban Missile Crisis:

The US, USSR, and Cuba all sought security
- The documents support this (compromise re: NATO missiles in Turkey; Cuba’s fear of invasion by the US; US worries that its actions could provoke retaliation by the USSR)
Governments make decisions, predictions, with limited information
- Implication: Decisions cannot be perfectly rational; based on predictions about others’ behavior

Students produce:

Students will be divided into four smaller groups, two groups assuming the role of the US and two becoming the Soviet Union. The individuals within each of these small groups will work collaboratively to analyzing all three documents included in the lesson. These groups are then asked to develop a cohesive “policy proposal” to the entire class. These proposals can take a wide range of forms, although it is essential that students identify 1) a “policy priority” that is rooted in a group’s reading of the primary material (e.g. removal of US missiles in Turkey) and 2) a rationale that details the group’s reasoning for making the specific recommendation that they have chosen (e.g. “we recommend invading Cuba because the CIA report indicates…”).

Reflection:

With this activity I set out to use an exciting, high-profile incident to guide students to a broader understanding of the machinations of international politics. The process of developing the lesson and, the helpful feedback I have received from peers in particular, has helped me to identify major shortcomings that have both improved this lesson and will help me produce stronger lessons in the future. To fully realize the potential of learning through primary documents, I have found that it is essential that lessons be appropriately sequenced and scaffolded. Striking the balance between frustrating students by presenting them with materials they are ill-equipped to understand and over-scaffolding to the point of boredom will be a focus of mine as I grow as a teacher.

Title Image: EXCOMM meeting at the White House Cabinet Room during the Cuban Missile Crisis on October 29, 1962

October 6, 2013

Propaganda Used Throughout History

For my generative question, I want students thinking about how the state uses resources in order to aggrandize themselves. This can be applied to ancient empires, the United States (Particularly in WWII, Cold War, etc), Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, etc. I like this question because it’s applicable in World and US History and can be applied today.

This will involve fining documents and allowing students to think about why the state (whoever they may be learning about) would produce such a document. Why would this benefit them? Of course with the historical context hopefully provided by the class, the students will be able to hypothesize why the state would produce these documents.

Hopefully this allows the students to have a better understanding of how the people of a certain age or nation were thinking throughout history and also the decision process that state/government was making at the time. Furthermore, students will also be able to understand how and why propaganda may be used today throughout the world.