Subject: Social Studies
Topic: Foreigners Invade Your Country Simulation
Time Frame: 60 Minutes
Objectives: Students will be able to understand what it is like for a foreign nation to take over their homes and territory. Students will be able to simulate situations and defend their positions with other group members.
Methodology: Teacher Presentation, Small Group, Brainstorming, and Role Playing.
Materials:
- Teacher information presentation/handout
- Simulation cards
- Chart Paper & Markers
- Imagination
- Initiative
Space Requirements: Classroom and other areas where students can break into small groups.
Background Information: Throughout history there have been many wars during which one country took over another country or a portion of another country. This lesson provides students with the opportunity to role play what they would do if the foreigners took over. Students are provided with a role playing card and they must act on those principles when arguing or negotiating with other group members. This provides students with an opportunity to view the scenario from someone else’s perspective. Students are provided with a number of solutions to their problem, they must come to a unanimous decision regarding what they are going to do. Students are also given an opportunity to form an opinion or an argument regarding the role they are playing. Throughout this scenario there are four options presented to the groups from which they are to make their decisions.
Directions/Procedure:
- Teacher will read and review the information that is provided on the information sheet and discuss the invasion scenario. Students will be given a group expectations guideline and told that their peers will be reviewing them for evaluation. (10 Minutes). Prior to breaking into groups, students will be able to express their personal opinion about what they believe should be done about the invasion. (10 Minutes).
- Students are divided into groups of five or more. Students are given their role playing scenario card. Students are given an opportunity to argue their role playing perspectives and opinions. Students are provided with four options from which their group must come to a unanimous decision. (20 Minutes). Students will then present to the classroom the various decisions that their group has come up with. (15 Minutes).
- The teacher will take the opportunity to thank the students for their role playing, their thoughts and perspectives. Many may choose to fight the foreigners while others may choose to try negotiating an agreement with the foreigners. When an agreement is written between two nations it is called a treaty. Students will be asked to think about what they would like in their negotiated treaty with the foreigners. (5 minutes).
Evaluation: Group Evaluation Rubric
Foreign Invasion
The Foreigners have just arrived in your country in your city or town, They are many and armed and while they can communicate with you through an interpreter they are quite aggressive. They have just placed their country's flag above your community. They have asked that all people come to a meeting with them. You go to the meeting and they inform you that you now have to follow all of their rules or they will kill you. Your country's armies tried to kill the foreigners but for everyone they kill four more come to take their place. All stores have been looted, there are no food supplies and the foreigners are only giving food to those that will bow down and claim the foreign religion as their own. Television and radio stations have been turned off. Communication is limited so that there is no chance to come together and develop a strategy to remove the foreigners from the country. The foreigners want you to leave your homes and move into holes in the ground which they have provided. Once you move into these foreign manufactured homes you are not allowed out unless you change to their religion or you have their permission. Permission to leave will be granted once every four years. As concerned citizens you have come together to discuss the invasion. There are four options that have been discussed. You are to go to your community group and unanimously decide which of the four options your group will choose.
- to organize an army to fight the foreigners, to never give up and never surrender.
- to hide away from the foreigners by taking your families to a place that is hidden from the foreigners
- to convert to foreign religion and pledge your allegiance to the foreigners so that you and your community will be given food.
- to try to write an agreement with the foreigners in order to retain the same rights and freedoms you have today
