As part of our studies on the history of the Middle East Conflict, my students (aged 14) were provided with an timeline of events.

The class was then divided into two groups. One was instructed to produce a Google Earth Tour from an Anti-Palestinian perspective, the other from an Anti-Israeli perspective.

By doing so, and then comparing each other's work, they were able not only to familiarise themselves with the main events of this very important piece of history and current affairs, but were able to separate out facts from opinions, and appreciate how propaganda (adding opinion and "spin") and censorship (cutting out unwelcome facts) can be used by biased people to affect our perception of events.

Both tours are contained in the placemark attached here. This is their first foray into Google Earth and I know they'd appreciate some feedback!

dear russel!

i have to express my best regards for using GE as a tool for teaching young people!

you are a great master!

an example from your teaching method:

Quote:

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from anti-palestinian folder:

Quote:

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1947 Israel Declared
The new western part of Palestine was proudly declared to be a new country called Israel, a homeland at last for the persecuted Jewish people. Sadly, the Arab states selfishly want to destroy this new peace-loving country.

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from anti-israeli folder:

Quote:

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1947: Israel Declared
David BenGurion rashly declared that the new Jewish is now a new country called Israel. The Arab nations, who were not consulted, are understandably outraged by this.

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thanks for showing both sides of the coin!

this is the way young people can see clear and to be able to build up their sense of justice.

thank you!

sending my best regards for your pupil too!

yours sincerely,

g�bor

It's a nice thing to teach history by the help of a map. So the students learn geography at the same time.

But you should teach them, to be FOR something, not against something (or anti-). We have too many individuals (politicians), who are against a thing, and they know exactly how not to do it. But they don't have any positive idea, how to solve the problem.

By the way: Israel was founded in 1948 (Friday evening, 14th of May, short before shabbat sun set) and not as mentioned twice 1947. But on 30th of November 1947 was the UN vote about the partition plan.

It's so difficult to understand, what is going on between these two peoples. I had the possibility to live for a couple of months at the slopes of the Golan and I was talking to some local residents.
They told me, Jews and Arabs were living a long time beside each other in friendship. Here was a jewish kibbutz and there an arab village and they knew each other well. In 1948 before the armies of 5 arab nations (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt) rolled towards the state to be, the Jews told the arab neighbors to stay, because they are friends and they will be friends also in the future and there is no reason to leave. But one morning, the kibbutzniks saw, the arab village was abandoned. They left their village in direction to Lebanon...

You say:
"But you should teach them, to be FOR something, not against something (or anti-). We have too many individuals (politicians), who are against a thing, and they know exactly how not to do it. But they don't have any positive idea, how to solve the problem."

I think you are absolutely correct here - and I'd just like to make the point that the resources I provide here are simply one part of a much larger unit, which ends with students considering 5 likely outcomes, debating which ones are most likely / desirable, and offering what they think the most constructive way forward is.

The purpose of the exercise I provide on this forum, though, was to get students thinking about how biased sources can twist peoples' perception of events and throw up more confusion than enlightenment.

Sorry if that wasn't clear in the original post!

Russel_Tarr,

What a great post and fantastic use of Google Earth.

It's great that you encouraged your students to think about things rather than imposing your ideas on them. The power of thought and reasoning amongst intelligent beings is such a useful tool - Congratulations not just for this post, but for your teaching style!!

Thanks!
Phil

Thank you so much for providing a very unique prespective on the situation. I am very tired of people claiming to be "un-biased" when they post about the subject, but their words contain insults to either Palestinians or Jews. Thank you so much again.

Great Idea!

I must check to see if we are using this Excellent tool in our schools.

What a great way for students to learn our world.

Thanks for posting this idea on here.

Dick

Thanks for all those wonderful points. My students have now gone on their Summer break, but I will be making sure I take a copy of this thread to hand to each of them when they return.

They got a real buzz out of knowing they would be producing something which the Google Earth Community would have the chance to look at and comment on, and they found Google Earth itself completely inspiring!

The only way to begin familiarizing oneself with this conflict is to realize that as long as one group of human beings are getting the lions share of earths wealth while another is not and the difference is great, and all they talk about is religion, color, race, etc. nothing will change. Rich people and poor people do not get along when the gap is so wide. Those who had the experience without money to use to buy some of the resources on earth will never say money is not important.
This is not siding with any religion or race or anything. By default at any given time, a group of people who have money somewhere on earth also have other interest that might different than a group of poor people somewhere else. Since no one is going to give a penny, we talk about all the other differences because no one wants to face a truth that it is your money that will be helping to make the difference between rich and poor enough where killing for it is no longer worth it. 3% of the people of earth take 30 % of the wealth, closing that is not communism or socialist, It something you don,t do at the table, bar, party, or many other places where people get along. Try it anywhere you like a see the results in your own world. Someday the cat in bag will have no takers.

Now THAT is a wonderful, intelligent, incredibly clever and infectiously-great CONCEPT, Mr. T!!!! Bless You and Yours...Please, Class---continue, forgive my "disruption".... An Apple for You, Russ...from The Big Apple's, Rico...