Good Group Activity

Assuming that it is possible for students to work together and use the same monitor in searching for information on countrywatch.com, CountryScope can work well as a group activity. If searching the web site together is difficult for students to do, then Parts II - IV can be completed in groups because they don't necessarily need to be done online.

As a group activity, CountryScope can take advantage of the various strengths different students bring to their groups. The activity requires a wide range of skill sets, so conducting it among groups will likely lead to better results.

Time constraints

As mentioned in the overview, this activity can be modified in numerous ways to accommodate time constraints. If you are worried about there being enough time for students to complete this activity, then you can have students follow the Basic (as opposed to the In-depth) line of questions. There are fewer questions for students to answer, so it should take them less time. Additionally, you may want to have them complete only some of the four parts. Again, as the overview states, the end of each part leads into the next one, but the end of each part also provides a natural stopping point.

Further, if you do decide to do this activity in groups, as a time saver you may want to divvy up the questions of Part I among the groups.

Part I Suggestions

The ease or difficulty of completing Part I will depend primarily on your students' experience in gathering information on the Internet. If they have done it before, then they should have few problems. The Countrywatch site is well-organized and labeled so that students should be able to figure out where to find the information they seek.

If you feel your students may be unfamiliar with information gathering in this way, then it will be helpful for you to model some of the questions. Lead them with questions of your own. For example, "Where would I likely find out the population of this country?" Or, "Where do you think I'd find out information about the government?" Then, hopefully your students will recognize that population numbers can be found in the general information and that there is an entire section devoted to the government. As you search to find out if an answer is correct, you can help them navigate and breakdown the site. That is, you can ask students, "What kind of information do you think is found here? What about here?"

Because Part I is centered on information gathering, you may want to consider making it a race to answer all of the questions. Sometimes competition can be a great motivator, but it depends on your students.

Part II Suggestions

The whole process of taking information and then inferring from that information to answer questions may be unfamiliar to students. If you feel that this is the case with many of your students, you should probably lead them through Part II. Doing the part as a class with you in the lead will allow those students who are unfamiliar with the process to begin to pick it up as you go. As leader of the discussion, you must ask students to explain their answers -- that is, why they believe something to be true. Then also as leader, you must ask other students if they agree. Meanwhile, you are also able to assess your students' knowledge of the people and the country.

If you decide not to lead this part as a class discussion, you may want to divide up the majority and the minority biographies among students. You may decide to have half the class do biographies of the majority citizens, while the other half does minority bios. Or, you may choose to have some groups focus on majority bios while other groups focus on minority biographies.

If students do Part II in groups, another way to use the biographies effectively is to have student groups present their biographies to the rest of the class. This way, students can compare and contrast their biographies. Then, if students move on to the next part, they can use some of the biographical information from other groups.

Part III Suggestions

If students successfully complete Part II, they should not have too much difficulty with Part III. One way to enhance this part is to have students create Venn Diagrams to show the similarities and differences. A Venn Diagram has two overlapping circles. In this case one circle represents the majority population, while the other represents the minority population. Any similarities between them should be written down in the space in which the circles overlap. Any differences should be in the part of each circle that is untouched by the other.

Part III can also be used to compare and contrast people from different countries. Obviously, students will have had to investigate at least two different countries in Parts I and II. If it is appropriate, you can assign different countries to different groups. Or, you can have students work through Parts I and II on one country, then later in the year have them work through Part III using both countries they have investigated.

Part IV Suggestions

Part IV covers a wide range of scenarios, each of which touches on issues of globalization, balkanization and/or nationalism. Nowhere do the scenarios label them as such, but there are opportunities to introduce them into the activity. Further, each scenario relies on students to fill in the specifics of the scenario. That is, the people involved, the industry involved, the religion involved, etc., must come from what students know about the country. By coming up with the specifics of the scenarios, students will work within an understood set of circumstances, and they will have a sense of ownership toward a scenario. But because it is the students' responsibility to come up with the specifics of each scenario, they may need your guidance in coming up with some of those specifics.

• Scenario One:
  Striking Workers can mainly be tied to the issue of globalization. Much of the momentum behind globalization results from economic factors. This scenario explores, in part, how a strike over working conditions in one country might affect workers in another country. Students may need your help in drawing out the impact on other countries.
  
  Scenario suggestions: The conditions over which they may be striking can be wages, hours, benefits and/or overall conditions.
• Scenario Two:
  Discriminatory Law can mainly be tied to balkanization (and nationalism, depending on the extent to which ethnicity factors into the differences in religion). One of the activities that follows the series of questions simply has students describe what it feels like to be discriminated against. Chances are that students have experienced some form of discrimination, especially age discrimination.
  
  Scenario suggestions: The law may prohibit people from openly practicing their religion; it may prohibit people of the religion from holding public office; it may prohibit them from teaching school because they might spread their message to impressionable children.
• Scenario Three:
  New Jobs ... has a focus on globalization. This scenario is one in particular that students may struggle with coming up with specifics for the scenario. One of the questions does mention some possible religious infringements as doing some work on sacred land or requiring work on holy days. To help students understand some of the issues surrounding this, you may want to point out that not long ago in the US few people worked on Sunday because it is the Christian Sabbath. Then, economic interests/benefits made it so a lot of people now work on Sunday.
  
  An example to demonstrate holy land is Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. It was erected land that is sacred to many Native American tribes. It brought tourism to South Dakota and the money that follows it, but was it at the expense of violating religion? (This example also has many other issues, mostly relating to the majority/minority population conflict, that tie into it.)
  
  Scenario suggestions: Water is a good area that creates industry and environmental damage, like overfishing, damming streams, etc.
• Scenario Four:
  Natural Disaster Next Door touches on globalization, balkanization and nationalism because of its economic emphasis as well as its focus on neighbor cooperation/animosity. Students must decide what the nature of the disaster is and whether or not those people affected are ethnic brethren or historic enemies. Students have the opportunity in one of the activities that follows the series of questions to reflect on a time in which they made a personal sacrifice for the benefit of someone else.
  
  Scenario suggestions: Depending on the part of the world, the nature of the disaster can be flood, drought, typhoon, hurricane, tsunami, earthquake or volcano. The latter two don't necessarily wipe out major crops the way some of the others can.
• Scenario Five:
  Third World Countries Seek Aid ... is probably the most difficult of the five because of its heavy economic interest as well as its reliance on some knowledge of third world and first world politics. The scenario tries to keep it as simple as possible. For instance, it labels countries only as "third world" and "richer" ones. It avoids terms like "developing nations" that may have further confused students. You may, however, want to introduce some more specific terms.
  
  Further, the scenario implies that richer countries don't owe money to other countries, which isn't true. Again, if you feel comfortable that your students will grasp credit ratings, then you may want to discuss some of these finer points. Finally, one of the wrap-up activities has students write a mock letter to a friend who owes money and keeps putting off paying the student back.
  
  Scenario suggestions: What might make this scenario a little less abstract for students is to make the US the country which is owed money.
• Scenario Six:
  Leader Blames Ethnic Minority … mainly focuses on balkanization and nationalism. It is similar to Scenario Two, but this one requires a little better understanding of the internal politics and the economic situation of a country. Also, though the scenario never uses the term "scapegoat", it is more focused on this concept than Scenario Two. You may want to discuss the idea of a scapegoat, asking students if they know of any specific examples.
  
  Scenario suggestions: The ethnic minority is willing to work at lower wages than the majority population, so many people in the majority are unemployed and overall wages are lower throughout the economy. Or, perhaps a higher percentage of the minority is in the prison system, so the leader doesn't like the cost required to incarcerate prisoners.