Peace lessons highlight nuclear risks
Educational resources released to coincide with a new film about the rise and fall of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Friends have helped highlight the legacy of early atomic scientists in peace lessons for secondary schools.
The educational resources, launched by Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) on behalf of the Peace Education Network (PEN), have been released to coincide with a new film about the rise and fall of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The controversial scientist organised the building and testing of the world’s first atomic bomb in Los Alamos in July 1945. Shortly after the first atomic bomb was tested, nuclear weapons were used by the US to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing around 200,000 people. Many survivors faced leukaemia, or other terrible side effects from the radiation.
The two lessons will support secondary school teachers, most of whom believe students should learn the humanitarian consequences of using nuclear weapons, according to a recent survey. More than ninety per cent of teachers do not agree that nuclear disarmament education is too political to be taught, the survey from the Nuclear Education Trust found.
The lessons, put together by Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR), combine science and citizenship and ask secondary school students what atomic scientists in the first half of the twentieth century wanted to happen.
BYM said that, ‘as the Doomsday Clock sits at ninety seconds to midnight, or “a time of unprecedented danger”, students are asked to evaluate the choices these scientists made’.
The free lessons are part of ‘Teach Peace Secondary’, a pack compiled and designed by BYM on behalf of PEN. Fifty-plus lessons will be released in full in the autumn.
Linked to English, Welsh and Scottish curricula, the ‘Atomic Scientists’ lesson explores the knowledge, skills and values of peacebuilding.
Comments
Please login to add a comment
