1. Woodcliff Middle School Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey Mr. Daniel O’Keefe
Trillium Learning Global 21st Century Schools Project
Woodcliff Middle School Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey Mr. Daniel O’Keefe
7th grade Social Studies
World War II Studies Project

2. World War II Unit
Students in Mr. O’Keefe’s 7th grade Social Studies class will be investigating different sub-topics of WWII. Students will first choose a topical area, and then, with a partner, research a more narrow aspect of that topical area. The topical areas are:
Military
Leadership
Battles/Turning Points
The Holocaust
WWII “at home” (in the U.S.)
Life after WWII

3. WWII - Military
Students will learn about specific weapons used for the first time in, or further developed during, World War II. These weapons include specific types of machine guns and the inner working of the Atomic bomb, as well as the Manhattan Project.
Students will also investigate specific transport vehicles used in WWII. These will include land vehicles (such as Jeeps and different types of tanks), sea vessels (the German U-Boat, for example), and specific types of planes used on the Allied side (such as the B-24J).
Other students will research military technology, such as encoding machines, radios, special armor, etc.

4. WWII – Leadership
Students will learn about the different military strategies used by U.S. war-time Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, including the latter’s decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Students could also examine Hitler’s famed Blitzkrieg strategy that allowed him to quickly take over smaller, weaker nations.

5. WWII – Battles
Students will use previously-learned knowledge about different turning points in the war as a springboard to more closely analyze specific battles and why they were important for either the Allied or Axis powers. These turning points include:
- The invasion/fall of Poland
The Fall of France
The Battle of Britain
Pearl Harbor
Stalingrad
“D-Day” / Normandy
The Battle of Midway
Okinawa & Iwo Jima

6. WWII – The Holocaust
Students will focus on one specific concentration camp, a specific law passed by the Nazis to limit the rights of Jews and others, or a specific individual’s Holocaust story of survival or loss.

7. WWII – WWII “At Home”
Students will explore a social group (women, African American s, Native Americans, Hispanic and Mexican Americans) that helped achieve victory at home through efforts in factories or in their own homes. Students will explore concepts of switching from a consumer economy to a war-time economy, rationing, and continued racial discrimination. Students will also explore propaganda used in the U.S. to build support for the war.

8. WWII – Life After WWII
Students will examine the short- and long-term impacts of WWII, including how the momentum for the Cold War began after the conclusion of WWII. In addition, the rise of suburban living and daily life in the 1950s will be explored and compared to life after World War One. Students will assess whether post-WWII was truly America’s “Golden Age”.

9. Our friends in China…
We will share four different, specific topics with you about WWII from an American perspective. These topics will come from any of the categories listed (Military, Leadership, Battles, the Holocaust, WWII at Home, and Life After WWII).