Activity Four

This activity is to accompany Unit Three of the Curriculum Guide.

Incorporating the C.E.L.s:

• Independent Learning
• Critical & Creative Thinking
• Personal & Social Values & Skills

Concept Application Lesson for:

• World View
• Strategic Interests
• Ideology
• National Security
• Spheres of Influence

This activity allows the students to investigate factors that influence a nation's world view. The students will analyze the contrasting world views of the Soviet Union and its wartime allies, and the western democracies. The activity will help explain the reasons for the contrasting world views and the policies of these nations following the Second World War.

Knowledge Objectives

The student will:

• know that a nation's world view is shaped by many influences including the nation's past experiences, its resources and its needs;
• know that a nation's dominant ideology will influence its perception of the world and other nations; and,
• know that the major nations' world views will influence the policies and perceptions of less powerful nations.

Skills Development

The student will:

• practise the following analytical skills:
  • defining the main parts,
  • describing cause and effect relationships, and,
  • describing how the parts of the whole are related to each other;
• practise using grids to organize information for analysis;
• practise defining and applying criteria as a basis for analysis;
• practise the skill of comparing and contrasting; and,
• practise constructing concept maps as means of analyzing data.

Values Issues

The student will:

• discuss whether a nation's past and its experiences, will always exert a major influence on that nation's contemporary and future perceptions and policies;
• discuss whether involvement in a major war will influence the strategies a nation will use to ensure its sovereignty; and,
• discuss whether new military technologies, such as nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, have reduced the influence of the past on a nation's perception of current and future conditions.

Outline of the Activity

Step One

Explain the following to students:

• Political tensions between the Soviet Union and its wartime allies became more apparent as the war neared its conclusion.
• The tensions were, in part, the result of two contrasting and competing world visions which dominated the policies of both the Soviets and the United States.
• The world view of each nation was somewhat unique. Each nation's view or paradigm was influenced by both their involvement in the Second World War, and the political ideology that dominated their society.

Have the students identify factors that influence the world view of a nation. Some factors include:

• involvement in the war's hostilities;
• whether the nation had been invaded and had sustained considerable damage;
• the availability of essential resources;
• the relative military strength of the nation;
• potential military opponents;
• the economic infrastructure of the nation; and,
• historic relationships with specific nation.

Student groups will prepare a analytical grid displaying these factors.

Step Two

Have each group represent one of the major Allied powers involved in the war.

• Each group is to complete the grid to illustrate the world view of their nation at the end of the Second World War.

• The group could also construct a concept map to identify the influences contributing to their nation's world view in 1945.

Each group will present their grid and explanation of their nation's world view to the class.

• The class can attempt to identify similarities and differences among the world views.

Following the comparison of the world views, the groups will prepare a short paper focusing on the question:

• Was the Cold War inevitable?