Should the U.S. military intervene to protect people in other countries from state-sponsored mass killing? This activity includes a deliberation reading and glossary, as well as accompanying handouts to give students additional information on the topic and to guide them through the deliberation process from planning to reflection.
You Can’t Say That: Right to Know vs. Security Risk
Explain to students that tensions between the press and the military have always existed, as the goals of each group are often in conflict. Reporters want information to flow freely, while the military guards national security interests. The debate over how to balance these competing interests continues today.
Ethics in America
Build moral reasoning by examining ethical dilemmas in this video series, which uses the Socratic method to build analytical skills and examine ethical questions. The programs aim to sharpen moral reasoning without favoring a particular position by exploring ethical dilemmas in legal, political, medical, corporate, and military arenas. Panelists include Antonin Scalia, Faye Wattleton, and Peter Jennings.
The Civil War (CKHG Unit)
This unit explores the political, historical and cultural causes and consequences before, during and after the Civil War, one of our nation’s greatest crises. Across 24 lessons, students engage with the material through primary sources and consider the influence of abolitionists and other intellectual as well as military and political figures.
This unit includes 24 lessons that are about 45 minutes each.
Japanese American Internment
On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which gave the military broad powers to ban any citizen from a coastal area stretching from Washington state to California and extending inland into southern Arizona. For the next four years, more than 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry—77,000 of them American citizens—were removed from this area and incarcerated indefinitely without criminal charges or trial. Forty-six years and eight presidents later, on August 10, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 into law.
Loyalists in the American Revolution
This short video clarifies the role played by Loyalists throughout the American Revolution. Never more than 1/5 of the population, Loyalists’ political and military significance varied both chronologically and geographically. Professor Jack Rakove highlights the efforts of British forces in the Southern colonies to enlist Loyalists in hopes of “pacifying” the countryside, but concludes that there were too few Loyalists for this strategy to succeed.
Celebrating the Founders
This short video explores why Americans celebrate the Founding generation. Americans point to a “founding moment” and, from the country’s earliest days, celebrated this “moment” on July 4. The first individuals to be honored were military leaders like George Washington; later, individuals who created the nation’s government were celebrated. Professor Daniel Dreisbach draws parallels between the commemoration of Washington as “Father” of the country and Moses as “Father” of the Hebrew nation.
George Washington and the Revolution
This short video examines the role played by George Washington in the defeat of the British during the American Revolution. From the moment he assumed command, Washington emphasized the importance of union to the war effort, in spite of challenges faced while commanding forces that were ill-fed, ill-supplied, and ill-served by the Confederation Congress. Professor W. B. Allen concludes that Washington’s leadership held both the military and the nation together during this tumultuous period.
George Washington in Retirement
This short video describes the “retirements” of George Washington. He threatened to retire while serving in the colonial militia, but did walk away from the military in 1783 and from the Presidency in 1796. Professor W. B. Allen notes that Washington’s life-long involvement with Mount Vernon enabled him, in 1796, to immediately resume efforts to provide for his family and for the enslaved people who would be freed upon his death.
The Second Amendment
Why do we have a right to bear arms? How has that right changed? This video lecture is part of an online course called “Introduction to Key Constitutional Concepts and Supreme Court Cases,” taught by University of Pennsylvania law professor Kermit Roosevelt III. The course explores the questions: Where does the Constitution come from? How has it changed over the years? How do we know what it means?