Universal Peace Day

Grade Levels: 3 - 5

Overview
Students use an online resource to learn about International Peace Day, celebrated in Hiroshima every August 6 to memorialize the children who died from the bombing of Hiroshima on 8/6/45 and to promote world peace. Then students write their own views about peace and participate in the spirit of the annual event by making paper cranes.

Objective
To practice using information from several sources to draw conclusions.

Materials
	How to Get the Paper Crane directions, one copy for each student or group
	Schoolmaster's Talk essay, one copy for each student or group
	Craft materials: brightly colored tissue paper, scissors

Steps
1.	Prepare for this activity by going to How to Get the Paper Crane and printing out the instructions for making paper cranes. Then go to Schoolmaster's Talk and print out this moving account of a schoolmaster who was in first grade when the atomic bomb fell near his school and forever changed his life.
2.	Tell students they are going to use the World Wide Web to learn about how people in the United States and Japan, countries that were at war 50 years ago, have found common ground in a wish for world peace. Review the selections they have just read about the devastation of war and the different ways people deal with enemies and former enemies.
3.	Then go online to The 1000 Cranes Project website to read one child's description of Sadako. Scroll down and click on "1000 Cranes Project '95" to see a picture of the monument. Click first on "7th Memorial Ceremony of the Atomic Bombed Children" and then on "The Monument of the Atomic Bombed Children" for a history and description of the monument, a symbol of the children of Hiroshima's wish for peace. Then click on "Miss Sadako Sasaki" for a short biography of Sadako and an explanation of the significance of the paper cranes.
4.	Return to the 1000 Cranes Project and click "The Peace Forum in Nagatsuka Elementary School." This takes you to the home page of Nagatsuka Elementary School. Now click "Kids' 1000 Peace Cranes Project '97." Note the photos of students with their cranes. Scroll down the page and click "Our Peace Messages Are Here" to read messages from students all over the world.
5.	In the classroom, distribute "The Schoolmaster's Talk" for students to read. Discuss the schoolmaster's experience and his attitude toward peace as well as the other thoughts about peace and finding common ground that students have been reading. Return to the 1000 Cranes Project website, click on "The 1000 cranes Project '95" and then on "The Message from Suzuhari Elementary School." After students read these opinions of why war breaks out and how to prevent war, have them email their views to students at Suzuhari School.
6.	Then distribute the directions for making paper cranes. Have students make one or more cranes. Check the 1000 Cranes Project website frequently for information on contributing cranes to the 1998 Cranes Project. You might display the cranes in the classroom before or instead of sending them to Japan.

Extension
Students might be interested in The Peace Memorial Ceremony 1995 page where they can view photographs and Quick Time videos of the 1995 ceremony.