Teaching with the News
Nuclear Weapons: What Should Our Policy Be?
Today, the world faces many complex challenges. We can see the results of terrorism, environmental issues, and disease, yet for most of us nuclear weapons remain out of sight and out of mind. For many, the abstract theories and jargon that surround nuclear weapons combined with the nearly unimaginable consequences make thinking about the challenges of nuclear weapons difficult.
Nuclear Weapons: What Should Our Policy Be? is an interactive lesson plan that engages students in consideration of divergent policy alternatives concerning this topic. This online lesson is excerpted from The Challenge of Nuclear Weapons. This one-week curriculum unit gives students the tools they need to wrestle with the questions that surround the future of nuclear weapons.
This lesson includes:
Policy Options: Three Policy Options have been framed to help students think about divergent policy alternatives, each driven by different underlying values, each with merits and trade-offs. The Options provided have been developed with input from the research staff at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. The Policy Options can be printed for classroom use from the Choices web site.
Lesson Plan: A two-period lesson plan is provided. It is focused on role-play and deliberation exploring the three Policy Options. Teachers are encouraged to integrate the suggested background resources into their courses as appropriate. Mapping the Nuclear World is an online lesson plan that you may also find helpful as background to this Options lesson.
- Nuclear Weapons Policy - What do you think? provides an opportunity for students to make their views on nuclear weapons known.
- The U.S. Role in the World gives students an opportunity to wrestle with larger question of the U.S. role in the world. What do they think about America's role? What issues are of most concern to them? What kind of world do they want in the 21st century?
Additional Resources from the Choices Program
The Challenge of Nuclear Weapons is a one-week curriculum unit that introduces students to the history of nuclear weapons and the concept of deterrence. It examines arguments for and against nuclear weapons and looks at three challenges facing us today: the leftover arsenals of the Cold War, proliferation, and the threat of nuclear terrorism.
Scholars Onine videos, produced by the Choices Program, bring university scholars into secondary level classrooms. They are designed to be used along with printed curriculum materials. All Scholars Online resources are also available as downloadable podcasts from Choices or iTunes.
The U.S. and Iran: Confronting Policy Alternatives is a Teaching with the News online lesson that engages students in the question of the U.S. relationship with Iran and the issue of Iran's uranium enrichment program.
Supplemental Materials for The Challenge of Nuclear Weapons provides links to additional resources related to this issue.
Additional Online Resources
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace provides extensive resources on the issues surrounding nuclear weapons.
Center for Defense Information is a source for fact and figures as well as the latest international news on nuclear weapons and policies.
Center for Nonproliferation Studies provides comprehensive data on nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons as well as tutorials on the NPT, timelines, maps and numerous links.
Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Threats is a series of maps reflecting the worldwide proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and their missile delivery systems. It is provided by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Federation of American Scientists' Nuclear Information Project provides factual information and analysis about the status and operations of nuclear weapons, the policies that guide their potential use, and developments in the nuclear fuel cycle.
NOTE: This online lesson is an excellent entrée into the larger question of America's role in the world. The U.S. Role in a Changing World is a one-week curriculum unit that provides a substantive look at this larger question.
