The Origins of World War 1

 

The video above gives an overview of the events leading up to World War 1.

 

Questions for Reflection:

 

 

Discuss the factors that led to the outbreak of World War I.  What role did the alliance system play in this process?

Examine the role that the United States played in World War I.  Why did the United States enter the war in the first place?  How was the United States affected by the war?  How did the United States shape the end of the war?

  

 

Why were the Europeans so enthusiastic at the beginning of World War I?  What role would nationalism and propaganda play in this excitement?  What would happen to this enthusiasm after the soldiers came into contact with the horrors of modern warfare?

 

 





American Literature: To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was immediately successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old.

Plot Overview

 

Scout Finch lives with her brother, Jem, and their widowed father, Atticus, in the sleepy Alabama town of Maycomb. Maycomb is suffering through the Great Depression, but Atticus is a prominent lawyer and the Finch family is reasonably well off in comparison to the rest of society. One summer, Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill, who has come to live in their neighborhood for the summer, and the trio acts out stories together. Eventually, Dill becomes fascinated with the spooky house on their street called the Radley Place. The house is owned by Mr. Nathan Radley, whose brother, Arthur (nicknamed Boo), has lived there for years without venturing outside.

 

Scout goes to school for the first time that fall and detests it. She and Jem find gifts apparently left for them in a knothole of a tree on the Radley property. Dill returns the following summer, and he, Scout, and Jem begin to act out the story of Boo Radley. Atticus puts a stop to their antics, urging the children to try to see life from another person’s perspective before making judgments. But, on Dill’s last night in Maycomb for the summer, the three sneak onto the Radley property, where Nathan Radley shoots at them. Jem loses his pants in the ensuing escape. When he returns for them, he finds them mended and hung over the fence. The next winter, Jem and Scout find more presents in the tree, presumably left by the mysterious Boo. Nathan Radley eventually plugs the knothole with cement. Shortly thereafter, a fire breaks out in another neighbor’s house, and during the fire someone slips a blanket on Scout’s shoulders as she watches the blaze. Convinced that Boo did it, Jem tells Atticus about the mended pants and the presents.

To the consternation of Maycomb’s racist white community, Atticus agrees to defend a black man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping a white woman. Because of Atticus’s decision, Jem and Scout are subjected to abuse from other children, even when they celebrate Christmas at the family compound on Finch’s Landing. Calpurnia, the Finches’ black cook, takes them to the local black church, where the warm and close-knit community largely embraces the children.

Atticus’s sister, Alexandra, comes to live with the Finches the next summer. Dill, who is supposed to live with his “new father” in another town, runs away and comes to Maycomb. Tom Robinson’s trial begins, and when the accused man is placed in the local jail, a mob gathers to lynch him. Atticus faces the mob down the night before the trial. Jem and Scout, who have sneaked out of the house, soon join him. Scout recognizes one of the men, and her polite questioning about his son shames him into dispersing the mob.

At the trial itself, the children sit in the “colored balcony” with the town’s black citizens. Atticus provides clear evidence that the accusers, Mayella Ewell and her father, Bob, are lying: in fact, Mayella propositioned Tom Robinson, was caught by her father, and then accused Tom of rape to cover her shame and guilt. Atticus provides impressive evidence that the marks on Mayella’s face are from wounds that her father inflicted; upon discovering her with Tom, he called her a whore and beat her. Yet, despite the significant evidence pointing to Tom’s innocence, the all-white jury convicts him. The innocent Tom later tries to escape from prison and is shot to death. In the aftermath of the trial, Jem’s faith in justice is badly shaken, and he lapses into despondency and doubt.

Despite the verdict, Bob Ewell feels that Atticus and the judge have made a fool out of him, and he vows revenge. He menaces Tom Robinson’s widow, tries to break into the judge’s house, and finally attacks Jem and Scout as they walk home from a Halloween party. Boo Radley intervenes, however, saving the children and stabbing Ewell fatally during the struggle. Boo carries the wounded Jem back to Atticus’s house, where the sheriff, in order to protect Boo, insists that Ewell tripped over a tree root and fell on his own knife. After sitting with Scout for a while, Boo disappears once more into the Radley house.

 

Later, Scout feels as though she can finally imagine what life is like for Boo. He has become a human being to her at last. With this realization, Scout embraces her father’s advice to practice sympathy and understanding and demonstrates that her experiences with hatred and prejudice will not sully her faith in human goodness.

 

1. Atticus tells the children several times that they need to walk in someone else's shoes before judging the person. Describe times when Atticus, Scout or Jem walk in someone else's shoes. How does this change how they view the situations? What role does this advice play in sympathy and compassion?
2. Do you think the missionary society was walking in the Mrunas' shoes? What do these ladies show you about life in the town? Can you walk in their shoes and understand where they are coming from?
3. Discuss race issues in this book. Why does Calpurnia speak differently around other black people? Why does Mr. Raymond pretend he is drunk to help people cope with his mixed marriage?
4. How does the trial and everything surrounding it change the town?

Here comes the science: The theories of Gravity

The Road Runner cartoons play fast and loose with gravity. Given the opportunity, Wile E. Coyote usually chases his quick-footed foe off the edge of a cliff -- but only plummets when he realizes he's running on thin air.

Needless to say, gravity doesn't work like this in real life. But what's going on when boulders or Acme anvils plummet to the Earth? Let's start with your feet and work our way up to, oh, the entire universe.

Gravity holds your feet down to the ground because the mass of the planet exerts a gravitational pull on the mass of your body. In fact, gravity stirs up an attraction between any two objects in the universe: moons dust motes, coyotes -- you name it. Wherever you find matter, you'll find gravity. You could never travel to a gravity-free planet, only one with greater or lesser mass resulting in greater or lesser gravity.

On a larger scale, gravity arranges cosmic bodies into orbits and even causes drifting space particles to pull together slowly into larger and larger clumps that eventually become planets, stars and galaxies. Back in the 1600s, Isaac Newton defined gravity as a universal force acting on all matter. According to his theory, the exact expression of gravity came down to mass and distance. The farther apart two particles are and the less massive they are, the less the gravitational force.

That's Newton's law of universal gravitation in a nutshell, and it stood unchallenged for three centuries. Then, in the 1900s, a wild-haired physicist by the name of Albert Einstein stepped in the ring and let fly with his general theory of relativity.

Einstein argued that gravity was far more than just a force; it was a curve in the fourth dimension of space and time. Given sufficient mass, an object can cause an otherwise straight beam of light to curve. Astronomers call this effect gravitational lensing, and it's one of the primary methods of detecting unobservable cosmic phenomena such as black holes. Similarly, the less gravity there is, the faster time passes, a phenomenon known as gravitational time dilation. For instance, a clock aboard an orbiting satellite advances slightly faster than a counterpart on Earth's surface.
While Einstein's theory brought gravity up to speed with modern science, we still don't know everything about gravity. Some scientists attribute gravity to hypothetical particles called gravitons, which -- in theory -- cause objects to be attracted to one another.

Finally, there's the field of quantum gravity, in which scientists attempt to reconcile general relativity with quantum theory. Quantum theory addresses how the universe works at the smallest subatomic levels. The field has helped scientists develop the standard model of particle physics, which details most of the inner workings of the universe -- with one notable exception. The standard model doesn't explain gravity.
So while quantum theory and relativity together explain most of the observable universe, they also contradict each other at times, such as in the study of black holes or the early universe. Not surprisingly, numerous scientists continue to work toward a unified theory.

Whatever theories we ultimately adopt, it's difficult to overstate the importance of gravity. It's the glue that holds the cosmos together, even if it still stirs up unanswered questions about the universe.

   

 

STUDENTS:   Please watch this educational video.  Discussion to follow in class next week.  Comments welcome.

 

 

20th Century History: The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster

At 11:38 a.m. on Tuesday, January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. As the world watched on TV, the Challenger soared into the sky and then, shockingly, exploded just 73 seconds after take-off. All seven members of the crew, including social studies teacher Sharon "Christa" McAuliffe, died in the disaster. An investigation of the accident discovered that the O-rings of the right solid rocket booster had malfunctioned.

Crew of the Challenger

• Christa McAuliffe (Teacher in Space)
• Dick Scobee (Commander)
• Mike Smith (Pilot)
• Ron McNair (Mission Specialist)
• Judy Resnik (Mission Specialist)
• Ellison Onizuka (Mission Specialist)
• Gregory Jarvis (Payload Specialist)

Should the Challenger Launch?

Around 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, January 28, 1986 in Florida, the seven crew members of the Space Shuttle Challenger were already strapped into their seats. Though they were ready to go, NASA officials were busy deciding whether it was safe enough to launch that day. It had been extremely cold the night before, causing icicles to form under the launch pad. By morning, temperatures were still only 32° F. If the shuttle launched that day, it would the coldest day of any shuttle launch.

Safety was a huge concern, but NASA officials were also under pressure to get the shuttle into orbit quickly. Weather and malfunctions had already caused many postponements from the original launch date, January 22. If the shuttle didn't launch by February 1, some of the science experiments and business arrangements regarding the satellite would be jeopardized. Plus, millions of people, especially students across the U.S., were waiting and watching for this particular mission to launch.

A Teacher on Board the Challenger

Among the crew on board the Challenger that morning was Sharon "Christa" McAuliffe. McAuliffe, a social studies teacher at Concord High School in New Hampshire, had been chosen from 11,000 applicants to participate in the Teacher in Space Project. President Ronald Reagan created this project in August 1984 in an effort to increase public interest in the U.S. space program. The teacher chosen would become the first private citizen in space.

A teacher, a wife, and a mother of two, McAuliffe represented the average, good-natured citizen. She became the face of NASA for nearly a year before the launch and the public adored her.

The Launch

A little after 11:00 a.m. on that cold morning, NASA told the crew that launch was a go. At 11:38 a.m., the Space Shuttle Challenger launched from Pad 39-B at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

At first, everything seemed to go well. However, 73 seconds after lift-off, Mission Control heard Pilot Mike Smith say, "Uh oh!" Then people at Mission Control, observers on the ground, and millions of children and adults across the nation watched as the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. The nation was shocked. To this day, many remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard that the Challenger had exploded. It remains a defining moment in the 20th century.

Search and Recovery

An hour after the explosion, search and recovery planes and ships searched for survivors and wreckage. Though some pieces of the shuttle floated on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, much of it had sunken to the bottom. No survivors were found. On January 31, 1986, three days after the disaster, a memorial service was held for the fallen heroes.

What Went Wrong?

Everyone wanted to know what had gone wrong. On February 3, 1986, President Reagan established the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident. Former Secretary of State William Rogers chaired the commission, whose members included Sally Ride, Neil Armstrong, and Chuck Yeager. The "Rogers Commission" carefully studied pictures, video, and debris from the accident. The Commission determined that the accident was caused by a failure in the O-rings of the right solid rocket booster. O-rings sealed the pieces of the rocket booster together. From multiple uses and especially because of the extreme cold on that day, an O-ring on the right rocket booster had become brittle. Once launched, the weak O-ring allowed fire to escape from the rocket booster. The fire melted a support beam that held the booster in place. The booster, then mobile, hit the fuel tank, causing the explosion. Upon further research, it was determined that there had been multiple, unheeded warnings about the potential problems with the O-rings.

The Crew Cabin

On March 8, 1986, a search team found the crew cabin; it had not been destroyed in the explosion. The bodies of all seven crew members were found, still strapped into their seats. Autopsies were done but exact cause of death was inconclusive. It is believed that at least some of the crew survived the explosion, since three of four emergency air packs found had been deployed. After the explosion, the crew cabin fell over 50,000 feet and hit the water at approximately 200 miles per hour. None could have survived the impact.

 

 

STUDENTS:  Questions for reflection:

 

--How do you feel about the United States Space Program?  Do you think it's beneficial for human beings to pursue space exploration?  Why or why not?

 

--Do you believe this tragedy could have been prevented by heeding the warnings about the O-rings?

 

--Many adults remember exactly where they were at what they were doing when the Challenger exploded.  Are there any defining historical moments in your lifetime that you remember exactly what you were doing as you experienced them?