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The Atomic Model and Social Effects

THE ATOMIC MODEL AND SOCIAL EFFECTS NOTE

This lesson could be used after studying the historical progression of the atomic model

GRADE LEVEL: 9

SUBJECT AREA: SCIENCE

CURRICULAR OBJECTIVE:

S1-0-8g Discuss social and environmental effects of past scientific and technological endeavours.

SOCIAL JUSTICE OBJECTIVE:

Students will examine the historical and current use of nuclear warfare and personally explore actions that can be taken to protect people’s right to life and their right to not be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

MATERIALS

Video Clip of atomic bomb (many available on YouTube) Nagasaki Survivor’s story Listening Guide Beans and garbage can (for demonstration) White Light, Black Rain (DVD available at Winnipeg Public Library)

EVALUATION:

Listening Guide Partner Rubric Letter to the Future

ACTIVATING: I

1. If you haven’t done so already in your classroom, begin by establishing "classroom ethics" so that students can feel safe to speak about their feelings and opinions.

Grade 9Science of 14


a. Have students brainstorm a list of classroom ethics by asking them: What are some things that we each need to feel a part of the classroom community? Write their ideas on the board. Examples include:

i. Respect each other. ii. Only one person speaks at a time. iii. Listen to each other. iv. Everyone has a right to their own opinion.

b. Once a list is drawn, review it together with the students, and have them agree to these guidelines for the duration of the class period in order to build a respectful environment.

NOTE: The students may find some parts of the lesson too much, always be aware that they might need a break at times.

2. After this is done, show an explosion of an atomic bomb. (Many clips are available on Youtube)

3. Have a large class brainstorm on the atom bomb and World War 2. a. Write "Atom Bomb" on the board and circle it. Ask the students to say

ANYTHING they think of when they hear the words “atom bomb.” b. Create a web of ideas/ thoughts related to “atom bomb.” This will help the

class to outline basic information about atom bombs, and can also serve to correct any false assumptions. It will also help to prompt students’ memories and knowledge of WW2.

c. Sample questions to prompt discussion:i. What do you think of when you hear the word – atom bomb?ii. When were atomic weapons created? (this can be a review of the

history of the atomic model)iii. Why were they created?iv. What countries have them? v. What makes them different than other weapons?vi. What is radiation?

ACQUIRING

1. Show Video Clip of Atomic Bomb Survivor Sakue Shimohira available on DVD, White Light, Black Rain. – Available at Winnipeg Public Library

2. OR Watch a very short clip on-line of a Nagasaki survivor (Sakue Shimohira) telling her story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jjm5t7kOBw

3. OR Hand out copies of her story to read together. (Please note, she describes some gruesome images, prepare your students)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jjm5t7kOBw


4. Have each student complete the listening guide. Give them 10-15 minutes to complete this.

5. HEAD / HEART RESPONSES TO CONTROVERSIAL ISSUESII This is an excellent tool to give students a chance to express their feelings and opinions through a "pair share." This timed activity helps connect intellectual and emotional responses to controversial issues and to develop critical thinking skills.

a. Ask participants to find a partner, and sit in pairs facing each other. Tap your partner on his/her knee. The first person to tap is Partner A, the other person is Partner B. Communicate the following to your students:

i. Let's start with Partner A speaking and Partner B listening. I'm going to begin a sentence and leave the end blank. Partner A will repeat what I've said, and complete the sentence in his/her own words, and continue talking. There are four sentences that Partner A will complete. You'll have two minutes for each sentence. Remember to keep completing the sentence. I will let you know when the time is up.

ii. After the allotted time, give students a 30 second warning to give them time to finish up their sentences. The facilitator should decide on the time for each open sentence. Two minutes is an effective amount, and often surprising in how long it actually feels, three minutes is useful for a group that knows each other well. Be sure to time this activity. When Partner A has completed the four sentences, then Partner B will have a turn to complete each sentence again, in their own way and keep talking for two minutes, for each sentence.

iii. Remind the students that when one person is talking, the other person should remain silent and listen as supportively as they can. This is not a conversation.

iv. If it's helpful, the teacher can write each sentence on the board, after the initial instruction. It's important to reiterate that this is not a conversation and that listening can be very active - making eye contact with the speaker, and using supportive gestures.

v. It's useful to arrange the series of questions so that they move from the intellectual ("I think"), to the emotional ("I feel") to future action ("I would"). It is also useful to begin with gratitude ("what I love"). This can help students relax at the beginning of the exercise and connect to a sense of urgency for disarmament, because everything is threatened by the existence of nuclear weapon. Starting with a statement of what we love can help motivate students to create a culture of peace.

vi. Open Sentences about Nuclear Weapons and Disarmament:1. Some of the things I really love about being alive today are

____________. 2. When I think about science I think that_____________.



3. When I think about the atomic bomb I think that _______________.

4. When I think about nuclear weapons in the world today, I think things are ________.

5. When I think about nuclear weapons some of the feelings I carry around with me are ________.

6. Knowing all the damage that the atomic bomb is capable of inflicting, in the future I would ____________________________.

vii. When both participants have completed the sentences, ask them to convey to their partner their appreciation for the other person's good listening. Wrap up by inviting students to share back and forth about the experience.

6. HAND OUR PARTNER RUBRIC FOR COMPLETION7. THE BEAN DEMONSTRATION:III Albert Einstein, great inventor, Nobel laureate

and anti-war advocate, said "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Because it is difficult to comprehend the destructive force of nuclear weapons, this demonstration helps us imagine the power of the nuclear threat through sound.

a. Explain to students that they will hear 2 sounds: The first sound represents the total firepower contained in all the weapons used in WWII" including the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. That is, 3 megatons of TNT represented by the sound of a single bean dropping into the metal tin. Hold up the bean and then drop it into the empty tin. It makes a "ping" sound.

b. Ask them to think about and name the firepower used in WWII i.e., bullets, bombs, grenades, etc. Once again drop 1 bean in the tin, restating that all the munitions they just identified are represented by the sound of 1 bean. (Repetition will ensure that students understand the analogy).

c. Explain that since WWII, countries with nuclear weapons have multiplied. Among the 9 nations (United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, France, Israel, India, Pakistan – and most recently, North Korea) that have nuclear weapons, there are approximately 27,000 nuclear weapons on the earth, mostly owned by the United States and Russia.

d. Now, introduce the second sound. Tell students that the total firepower of the world’s current nuclear arsenal is represented by the sound they are about to hear. Emphasize that this sound does not include all the bullets, bombs, grenades, and other conventional weapons; only the equivalent firepower of the nuclear weapons deployed today.

e. Ask them to close their eyes, and to remember that each bean represents the firepower of one WWII. Gradually, pour the entire contents of the box of 2,225 beans into the tin.

f. After the last bean drops, take a moment of silence.8. REFLECTION



a. After a moment of silence, ask students how they felt when they heard the sound of all those beans:

i. How did this demonstration make you feel? ii. What do you want to say about it? iii. Use an object such as a ball that students can pass to one another

when they have something to say. The student or teacher holding the ball is recognized as the speaker. Students can choose not to say anything and pass the ball on. This method assures that all students will be given the opportunity to speak if they feel moved to do so. Validate students’ feelings by reflecting back to them what they have said and allow enough time for all students to speak.

iv. Many students have reported feeling "angry", "sad", "frightened", and "numb". When confronted with this level of violent destruction, these emotional responses are perfectly healthy. You can say to students: "If you feel angry or sad when you hear this demonstration then you can be assured that you are alive. There is blood coursing though your veins. Your heart is beating. You are a healthy human being." You might want to mention also that there are connecting emotions to feelings like anger and sadness. When we feel angry this can often indicate a desire to see change. Anger can fuel our passion for right action. When we feel sad this is almost always an indication of our capacity for love and compassion. Remind students that these connecting emotions such as compassion and a sense of urgency, can be motivating factors for social change.

(1) "A ton unit pertaining to nuclear explosions is a unit of energy equal to 1,000,000,000 thermo chemical calories. The kiloton and megaton are a thousand and a million times as large": 1,000 kilotons equals 1 megaton. Measures and Units, Final Answers, Michon, G.P. Ph.D. 2000-2005. Retrieved February 20, 2005: http://home.att.net/~numericana/answer/units.htm#tons.

(2) The 2,225 beans represent the firepower of 27,000 nuclear weapons, with each bean equivalent to 3 megatons of explosive power.



APPLYING

1. Ask students to close their eyes and imagine the world free from nuclear weapons.

2. Ask them: a. How would that world be built? b. How would the energy and tenacity of amazing young people like

themselves contribute to that world? c. How would they each commit to creating a nuclear weapon free world?

3. LETTER TO THE FUTUREa. Ask Students to write a letter to the future, explaining the problem that has

been created by science and how they responded to the problem personally. This will allow students to make a personal commitment to their own future. Encourage them to take Action on creating a more peaceful world without nuclear weapons.

b. NOTE: The Canadian Network to abolish nuclear weapons website for further action. http://www.web.net/~cnanw/

4. Some helpful resources on children and youth’s peace movements include:a. Global Movement for Children (http://www.unicef.org/gmfc), b. Taking IT Global (http://www.takingitglobal.org) and c. Global Youth Action Network (http://www.youthlink.org


http://www.web.net/~cnanw/


PERSONAL STORY OF SAKUE SHIMOHIRA:

In 1945, I was a fifth-grade pupil at Shiroyama Primary School. By this time it was all but impossible to conduct regular classes, and we spent most of our time participating in air-raid drills. We wore air-raid hoods on our heads and formed a line and sang military songs on our way to school. Once at school, we practiced hiding under our desks as quickly as possible, or, at the cue of "enemy attack," lying down with our fingers over our mouths and eyes. Even after going home, we had to practice hiding in the air-raid shelter.

Early in the morning on August 9, my father departed for work in Isahaya and my older brother for classes at Nagasaki Medical College, leaving my mother and older sister at home. When the air-raid alarm sounded, we children all fled at once to the air-raid shelter in Aburagi-machi. While I ran along with my infant cousin strapped to my back and my little sister by the hand, airplanes flew low over the city several times and sprayed the ground with machine-gun fire. Five or six boys and seven or eight girls were already hiding in the shelter. After a while the air-raid alarm was lifted and the boys went outside, saying that they wanted to go home. I do not know where those boys died. My sister came to the shelter to give us our lunch boxes, but she did not linger in the shelter for long. Just when I began to eat my lunch, the flash of the atomic bomb explosion lit up the shelter and the blast knocked me unconscious.

When I came to my senses, I found the shelter filled with burned people. Some had eyes and tongues torn out; others had bellies ripped open and intestines hanging out. The students who had been mobilized to work outdoors had suffered terrible burns. They cried out for their mothers, their eyes and noses hidden in their faces swollen like pumpkins.

My younger sister was uninjured, but I could not find my baby cousin anywhere. After a frantic search, I finally found him pinned under a mat upon which injured people were sitting, and before I managed to pull him out, I thought he had already been crushed to death. The sun went down, plunging the shelter into darkness, making it impossible to distinguish one person from another. The stench of burned flesh and spilled blood tainted the air. The walls echoed with the cries of the injured people calling out the names of relatives and with the voices of teachers from the commercial school trying to comfort their students. In the evening, my father appeared, calling out, "Is anyone from Komaba Eighth Group here?" We made our way to the entrance, stepping among the injured, apologizing again and again, receiving help from one person after another in carrying the baby, before finally emerging from the shelter. The first thing I noticed outside was the fire consuming the commercial school. The bright flames illuminated the



people in the shadows, inviting attacks from the enemy planes that came flying low over the city. We fled into the shelter again and hid breathlessly under a pile of corpses. We repeated this several times before dawn, looking outside when the sound of airplane engines receded and then diving back into the shelter with the arrival of still another airplane.

The light of dawn revealed the terrible devastation all around. Someone was lying face down to take a drink from the muddy puddle in front of the shelter. "Don't drink that water," said my father, but the person just ignored this advice. Then the person died, and the next desperate person came crawling out to push the corpse away and take a drink. A man nearby, using a large fishhook to pull up the shoulders of the dead, looked into the faces of one corpse after another, sighing, "This isn't my child." The area was teeming with parents searching for children and children searching for their parents. The following day we heard a rumor that the woman who lived next door to us was lying injured near Urakami River, so my father went out to look for her. He found her with her face burned black like charcoal and her throat cut in a straight line, a wound that she perhaps suffered while struggling out of the debris of her house. She begged for a drink of water, so a girl from our neighborhood brought her a bowl of soup. But the soup spilled out of the cut in her throat.

Terribly worried about our mother and sister, we made our way through the ruins to the site of our house, only to find a man from the neighborhood, Mr. Matsumoto, lying dead at a gateway. His eyeballs were hanging out, and his tongue was stretching from his mouth. His presence here indicated that we had found the approximate location of our house. In front of the entrance we found a corpse under the broken remains of a cart. When we turned the corpse over, we recognized the face of our sister, which alone had escaped the flash of heat. Her body was so thoroughly burned that her black flesh crumbled at the slightest touch. My father found our mother the next day. My brother returned to us alive but severely injured, and he died four days later. I cremated the remains of my mother, sister and brother with my own hands.

After losing my mother and siblings and suffering exposure to the atomic bomb explosion in an air-raid shelter only one kilometer from the hypocenter, I joined my father and two surviving siblings in a new life of hardships. We gathered scorched sheets of metal and used these to build a makeshift shack on the site of the present-day Nagasaki Prefecture Gymnasium. When it rained, the water made a loud tapping sound on our roof and leaked through the cracks, forcing us to use umbrellas inside as well as outside. Other people laughed at our scorched structure and called it the "red castle." Since there was no electricity, we had to use lamps for lighting. My days were a



monotonous routine of searching for edible weeds and using these to make meals. It was all that we could do just to fend off starvation. We did not have time for school.

My sister, who had been eight years old at the time of the bombing, had to undergo an appendectomy when she reached the twelfth grade, but the incision stubbornly refused to heal, perhaps because of a low white blood cell count associated with exposure to atomic bomb radiation. The open incision gave off an unpleasant odor, and this caused her great discomfort. After untold mental hardships, she killed herself by throwing herself in front of a train, ending a short life of only 19 years. It grieves me to this day to think that I knew nothing about her torment and that I was unable to offer advice or support as her older sister.

The atomic bomb survivors have suffered more than those who died. There are many who lost all their relatives and who, utterly alone in the world, die a slow death with no one upon whom to depend. These people cannot find work in society, nor can they function physically like other people. They are suffering far more than the dead. This is why I have resolved to stand up and appeal - as long as there is life in my body - for peace, and to insist that nuclear weapons must never be used again.



LISTENING GUIDE

Briefly describe the human story you have just heard.

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Which human rights do you think are brought into question?

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What are your thoughts about what you have heard?

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Why do you think it is important to learn about this?

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HEART/HEAD RESPONSE IN PARTNERS RUBRIC

Working with a Partner Rubric 4 3 2 1

Excellent

Quality Acceptable

Speaks clearlyListens to partnerRespects rights, feelings, and opinions of partnerObserves time limitsFollows specific directions of the assignment

Name________________________________ Class_____________ Date__________

Each person will complete the following rubrics at the end of the activity. Use the first rubric to rate yourself. Use the second to rate your partner.

Working with a Partner Rubric 4 3 2 1

Excellent

Quality Acceptable

Speaks clearlyListens to partnerRespects rights, feelings, and opinions of partnerObserves time limitsFollows specific directions of the assignment

TAKEN FROM:Communicating Through the Arts Revised 5/8/2023Working with a Partner Rubricedservices.ccps.org/finearts/curriculum_ctta_working_w_partner_rubric.doc



LETTER TO THE FUTURE

To my grandchildren or grand niece or nephew or to a young friend,

I would like to tell you what I like about my world now..

This is what I think about atomic weapons..

Because I am aware that there is a problem with atomic weapons in the world today, I am going to..

Sincerely,

Grade 9 Science


i These ideas taken from the Cyber School Bus website on December 23, 2009-12-23http://cyberschoolbus.un.org/dnp/sub1.asp?subnav=1&ipage=classroomii Ibidiii Ibid

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