UN: New Secretary-General Guterres appeals for world peace by Ruptly TV

What is Peace?

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The United Nations aims to make the world a more peaceful place. At the end of this challenge you will design and create a poster that supports and promotes peace.

Your Challenge:

Your challenge is to research, brainstorm and discuss what peace is and what international peace means. 

Follow this Process:

  1. Watch this video showing the UN Secretary General appealing for world peace. In the video he says, “No one wins these wars, everyone loses.” In pairs discuss what you think he means by this. Do you think he is right in saying this considering the negative effects wars have on civilians? Justify your position.

  2. Research websites including this one for more information on the United Nations and its mission to achieve international peace and security. Using other information and websites online, ask the students to write down (on paper or a word document) any new information they find out about the UN and peace.

  3. Brainstorm with partner and write your own ideas about the importance of global peace down. Consider any new information you have from the research you did as well. Some things to consider are-saving people’s lives, making sure people are not displaced; saving money that is spent on weapons,etc.

  4. Discuss with a partner come together as a class to discuss different ideas from the groups on the importance of peace and put these up on the whiteboard.

  5. Summarise were there many points in common or many that are different? After this continue the discussion as a class by asking them why they think there are still so many worldwide conflicts. Things to consider include: the complicated histories in different countries, poverty and corrupt governments around the world. The aim of this is to show them the importance of promoting peace and also that it is not a straightforward thing to achieve.

  6. Take action by asking each student to design and then create a poster promoting world peace. The United Nations runs a poster for peace competition. Show the students examples of past winners posters to inspire them. Or write a blog post on the importance of world peace. What do you think about other issues the world is facing like environmental issues, to you is this more important than world peace? Write a blog post on what world peace means to you.

  7. Capture and share by writing a short explanation on what your poster means to you. Then take photos of the posters and the explanations and put the photos on the school’s Facebook page to share with parents and friends of the schools or set up a time to display the posters and have parents come into the school to find out more and have their child show them and explain what their poster means to them. Or email the blog post to us and we can share these posts on the UNA page or put the blog posts on the school’s website.


Educator Notes

To Simplify:

  • Focus more on a class discussion with a brainstorm as a class on what international peace is after watching the video instead of discussing in pairs and researching spend more time on each student designing their own poster that promotes peace and giving them time to think of what they want the poster to show and how they could visualise this.

  • Ask the students to think more generally of what peace means to them or globally what peace would look like.


To make it more complex:

  • Refer to this website and split the class into five separate groups for the five different ways the UN maintains international peace and security.

    • 1 - Preventive Diplomacy and Mediation

    • 2 - Peacekeeping

    • 3 - Peacebuilding

    • 4 - Countering Terrorism

    • 5 - Disarmament

  • Ask each group to read their section go through the click on parts for more information and when they are finished get one person to write down what they have found, ask them to discuss as a group what they find out, to write it under their section in a class Google doc and then verbally report back to the class what they find out.

  • Another way to make this more complex is for the students to create a poster for peace on a design programme on computers-they could use word, in-design or photoshop. Get them to write a detailed explanation of their thought processes designing and creating their posters.

Links:

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV3S33cZi44

Additional videos: The website for how the UN maintains international peace and security:http://www.un.org/en/sections/what-we-do/maintain-international-peace-and-security/Inspiration for the students for their Posters for Peace:https://www.unposterforpeace.org