Atomic Bomb

Students will examine motives for dropping the atomic bomb and then evaluate the decisions made.

President Truman recalls many of the successes and problems of the Potsdam Conference and the postwar world in his diary entries and letters to his wife, Bess Wallace Truman. Students are given the opportunity to examine these unique documents and argue about their validity as primary sources while learning about the Potsdam Conference.

Using the primary sources provided, students will work in groups to evaluate four options available to President Truman to end the war in Japan and to end the Second World War.

Student will investigate and compare the personal experiences included in Rod Hersey; book Hiroshima with the first-hand account of American Nikolay Palchikoff’ visit to Hiroshima three weeks after the bomb.

Students will be able to analyze one or more primary sources in order to take and defend a position on the World War Two atomic bombing in Japan.

Students will review primary source documents, secondary resources and related news articles and current events relating to the events and impact of the test of the atomic bomb at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on July 16, 1945.

This lesson uses the jigsaw method of cooperative learning to determine how President Truman felt about dropping the Atomic Bomb on Japan.

Students will analysis and evaluate primary documents, videos, excerpts from newspapers and books, and then in groups will create a persuasive essay supporting their point of view, including quotations from the provided sources.

Students will write a 20-point persuasive essay explaining their decision on how to end WWII.

In this lesson students will continue with their examination of the dropping of the atomic bombs, this time focusing on varying historical perspectives. In particular this will include the Japanese perspective.