Particle fever (2014) is a fascinating documentary film that
follows six scientists working to see if the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
at CERN will produce evidence of the Higgs boson,
commonly referred to as the "God particle." Although safe for all
ages, the subject matter of Particle Fever makes this movie
most appropriate for high school students and older. The science presented is
top-notch, with complicated physics explained in language that everyone should
be able to understand.
Why am I writing
about this documentary in my CLIL blog today? Well, I reckon that this
documentary conveys in a superb way the passion of some researchers for Science
but also the honest attitudes one can adopt to grasp knowledge of our world.
Therefore, I would say that we can make use of this documentary in
several subjects: Technology, Maths, Physics, Philosophy or Citizenship. You
can follow the official trailer below these lines:
If you like the
proposal, let me just help a bit with some study questions. You
can find them here.
Human Rights Day is observed every year on 10 December. It
commemorates the day on which, in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly
adopted the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
Many years have passed and unfortunately there is still a
long way ahead to guarantee the fundamental freedoms and protect the human
rights of all. However, it also has to be said that there are many
organisms and individuals who are working hard to collaborate to protect human
rights. Today I would like to write about one of these individuals. Her name is
Benedetta Berti. She is a foreign policy and
security researcher, analyst, consultant, author and lecturer. Her work focuses
on human security and internal conflicts, as well as on post-conflict
stabilization/consolidation (specifically integration of armed groups,
democracy/governance and crisis management and prevention).
Today I would like to share one of her video lessons
to start analyzing the complexity of this issue with students. In less
than five minutes, Benedetta offers an accurate insight into the limits of the
current mechanisms that aim at protecting human rights. She also highlights the
need to update the existing mechanisms if we want to preserve human
rights in the current digital world we live in. Therefore, I reckon it would be worthwhile spending five
minutes on viewing the video above with students and I suggest fostering
students' discussion after viewing it. I hope you will find this
lesson plan useful.
My second proposal for classroom use is based on
"Blowing in the wind" by Bob Dylan. Composed in 1963, its
message is very much alive in 2015. The song includes a string of
provoking questions to make us aware of the fact that the largest cause of
human rights violations is mental disconnection from the reality that
affects others: "how many times can a man turn his head, and
pretend that he just doesn't see?"
You can find a simple activity to carry out while students
listen to the songhere.
Finally, I would like to suggest some other sources that
include plenty of resources for classroom use: