Eighth-grade students on the Swain Campus have been exploring the causes, experiences, and outcomes of WWI during Humanities. Students explored the interconnected nature of how WWI started and progressed through a WWI simulation. Each group represented a region of the world that was involved in WWI or impacted by WWI. Students quickly figured out that WWI was truly a global war that created many complicated networks and conflicts in almost every continent of the globe. 

They finished the unit of WWI through a WWI Peace Treaty Talks lesson. Students first analyzed the impact of the war by examining total casualties and expenditures per nation in WWI. Then students broke into groups and represented the following nations: Great Britain, the United States, France, Belgium, Japan, South Africa, and Germany. 

Students negotiated the following terms of WWI:

• War Guilt-Which country or countries should be blamed 
• War Reparations-Which country or countries should pay for the damages of the war? the damages of war? How much?
• Military Power-Should all countries be permitted to keep a military?
• Colonial Possessions-Should countries be permitted to keep their colonial possessions in the wake of WWI?
• League of Nations-Should countries join an international peacekeeping & decision-making organization?

Student Reflections from the WWI Peace Talks Lesson

"I enjoyed embodying a country, I felt powerful"-Kai Garcia '27"

I liked how it put numbers and conflicts into more understandable terms."-Leland Naylor '27

"I liked getting to share out my opinions and voting on what we should do"-Lorelei Rocchio '27

"I liked that we were able to represent a country, it allowed us to get a glimpse into how the people in power were thinking at that time"-Sophia Brancato '27

"I also liked the hands-on experience with the peace treaty simulation and it was fun to figure out what choices I was going to make"-Charlie Crerand '27

"I liked that we were able to change decisions made in history by having our class as a whole decide what to do."-Emma Estrada '27

"I enjoyed learning the different alliances between countries and how that affected the Treaty of Versailles. "-Porter Fegley '27

"I also enjoyed getting to look specifically at the numbers and data, I felt like it really gave me a better sense of what happened. "-Olivia Laible-Warner '27