Subject: Social 20-1

Unit: Related Issue 2

Lesson Duration: 73 mins

Outcomes from POS

GLO
Students will assess impacts of nationalism, ultranationalsim, and the pursuit of national
interest.
SLO
-

Analyze how the pursuit of national interest shapes foreign policy. (First World War
peace settlements).
Analyze nationalism and ultranationalism during times of conflict (causes of First world
war)

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1.
Investigate why trenches were used during WW1
2.
Discuss Canadas role in WW1
Learning Activities
Learning Activity 1: Trench Warfare
As students come in have them go and grab their jackets.
- Watch the Somme Campaign
- Why did the trench warfare get so bogged down on the Western Front?
- Why werent the generals able to figure out how to break through the trenches?
- Take a vote (EVERYONE VOTES): Who was to blame for the stalemate on the
western front?
Learning Activity 2: Outside Trench Demonstration
- Take students out to the baseball diamond
- What the land looked like:
- flat farmland, no cover, some grass, trees have been mainly farmland
- How to find cover?
- Building bunkers takes time. Too much time, would have been shot.
- Down was the only way to go, but this was a common tactic.
- The general tactic was to flank the enemy.
- Why didnt they do that?
- Military tactics of the day:
- Have students line up, slow walk towards the Germans
- Whats the problem with this strategy?
- Why on earth would the generals have used this tactic?
- Issues with communication, more organized, better chance of shooting.
It was the old way
- Line up students in two rows (the trenches)
- How do you break through to the other side?
- Barbed wire filled no mans land, deep mud (in places so deep people drowned
in it)
- Artillery (both yours and enemy), machine guns (Cant really shoot them since

they are a very hard target to hit, you arent

Gas attack? Wind could blow it toward you (soldiers would pee on cloth to use
as a gas mask until they became common.
What other options are there?
- People tried digging to the other side
- Underground warfare
- Planted mines underground to blow up the trenches
So you pushed them back?
- Its like Red Rover. Not easy to just break through the line
- stick a couple students in the opposing trenches
- Now what? You have to push everyone out of the trench line...but its like a
maze
Even worse yet, imagine doing this in winter
War of attrition (just bleeding the other side dry)
-

Learning Activity 3: Debrief

- Watch ww1 uncut video on trenches
- So after all that how did they manage to break free from the deadlock?
- [Have students answer. DECIDE IF YOU WILL WATCH THE SECOND VIDEO
OR JUST EXPLAIN]
- Mechanization (tanks, coordinated and accurate artillery, reconnaissance
planes)
- Modern coordinated operations were born and broke the stalemate
- Do the poll everywhere again
- Why did some of you change your mind?