Goal
This unit brings the subject of globalization back to the home community, the neighborhood. The focus is on a key driving force behind globalization and global change -- technology. Students learn to connect environmental disasters and global environmental problems more generally (their media coverage, attitudes about valuing people’s lives) with already established notions of a civil society.  Students debate and assess whether the Green Revolution -- as an example of technological change experienced by small, underdeveloped agricultural communities -- was a good or a bad thing for the Third World.

The activities ask students to look critically at approaches to the “value of life” and thus to reconsider how democratic our “global community” really is.  Are some lives more valuable than others?  Do we value members of the global community in the same way as the members of our local community?  Should members of the global community interact only to improve and advance technology or also to advance and insure global human rights?  Examples include disasters and the current debate over effective and efficient global climate change abatement policies.

You may choose to focus on agricultural technology and use the ‘Green Revolution’ theme proposed for Activities 3.1-3.4 and the Union Carbide accident at Bhopal for Activities 3.5-3.8, or you may choose any other technological development with respect to extractive activities and human-induced disasters.
 

Learning Outcomes
After completing these activities, students should:

• understand the role agricultural technology plays in transforming the environment and the social relations among people using this technology;
• comprehend the linkages between big business (MNCs, agro-technological complexes, etc.) and small local farmers; and
• be aware of the significance of water for sustaining the use of the earth -- because many extractive technologies affect water resources.

• Background Information to Unit 3 (all students should read)

• Barber, B.  1992.  Jihad vs. McWorld.  The Atlantic Monthly (March): 53-55 and 58-63.
An easy reading. Places democracy in the power field between two forces -- economic marginalization and isolating nationalism that fragments supranational associations.
• Dak, T.M.  1989.  Green revolution and social change: Some reflections.  In Green revolution and social change.  Delhi, India: Ajanta Publications, pp. 65-77.
A critical view but certainly not the most negative reflection on the Green Revolution and its outcomes. An easy and quick read.
•  Huke, R. E.  1985.  The green revolution.  Journal of Geography (November/December).  Reprinted in Annual editions: Geography 1991/92.  G. Pitzl, ed.  Guilford, CT: Dushkin Publishing Group, pp. 20-26.
This paper provides a brief historic and geographic view of the genetic and technological developments that led to the Green Revolution. It also raises questions on the unequal impacts of the revolution. A good introductory piece.
• Stavrianos, L.S.  1981.  Multinational corporations in the Third World: Multinational corporations and the green revolution in the Third World.  In Global rift: The Third World comes of age.  New York, NY: William Morrow, pp. 446-450.
Good freshmen level reading.  Good if paired with French’s (1995) Forging a new global partnership.  Both are about multinational corporations, but present viewpoints from different times (1981 and 1995 respectively).  Thus students get some temporal change and a cumulative impression of the issues of concern.
 

• Gupta, A.  1991.  Bhopal, the forgotten tragedy.  In Ecological nightmares and the management dilemma.  Delhi, India: Ajanta Publications, pp. 1-31.
Very good reading for introductory-level students. Reflects on the accident and the developments and red tape problems since then.
• Morse, B. and T. Berger.  1992.  Letter to the President and Chapters 1 and 5 from Sardar Sarovar: The report of the independent review.  Ottawa, Canada: Independent Review, pp. xi-xxv, 3-7, and 61-79.
Not directly relevant to Bhopal, but relevant to the local-to-global linkages of development projects. A straightforward reading on this World Bank-funded dam project.  Good in combination with the Thukral and Sakate reading mentioned below.
• Thukral, E. and M. Sakate.  1992.  Baliraja: A people's alternative.  In E. Thukral, ed.  Big dams, displaced people: Rivers of sorrow, rivers of change.  New Delhi, India: Sage Publications, pp. 143-154.
The alternative dam project: bottom-up rather than top-down like the World Bank-funded dam described in the Morse and Berger reading. An easy read, but advisedly only in combination with the Morse and Berger articles.
• Wysham, D.  1995.  Ten-to-one against: Costing people’s lives for climate change.  The Ecologist 24(6): 204-206.

This short article critically assesses the approach currently in vogue in Western, industrialized countries to put a price tag on people’s lives in order to estimate the costs and benefits of climate change abatement policies. The price tag put on a person from an industrialized vs. an underdeveloped country makes for biased conclusions as to what policies to favor... Provocative to say the least!

Goals
Through a role playing game, students become aware of the differential access of Third World farmers to resources.  Students will also come to see the vulnerability of Third World farmers to the vagaries of nature and the market.
 
Skills

• role identification and play
• application of abstract concepts to a concrete local problem
• communicating

• Supporting Material 3.1
• Suggested Readings:  Stavrianos (1981), Dak (1989), Barber (1992), and Huke (1985)

This game and a follow-up discussion give students a good sense of the hardship and differential levels of vulnerability of Third World farmers to the vagaries of nature and the market, depending on farmers’ access to resources (land, seeds, fertilizer, water, know-how, social networks).  Use the following questions to guide a brief in-class discussion:

• How might local communities react to new agricultural technology?
• What are the effects of the Green Revolution upon local communities? (You may want to refer to the reading by Dak.)
• Which groups have benefited most? In which way? Why?
• Which groups have lost? In which way? Why?
• Are there more costs or more benefits to local communities from the Green Revolution?
• Should modern agricultural technology continue to be applied in all places? Who should use it? In what kinds of environments?
• What would Gandhi say?
• If future generations had a voice, what would they say about the Green Revolution?

 

Activity 3.2  Inequity and Poverty in Bangladesh

 
 
Goal
Students assume roles in a group discussion and debate and explore the conditions of the rural poor in the Third World.
 
Skills

• role identification and role play
• application of abstract concepts to a concrete local problem
• communicating

• Supporting Material 3.2
• Background information on Bangladesh and/or the rural poor in the Third World

Divide the class into five groups. Provide each group with sufficient copies of the role statements  provided in Supporting Material 3.2.  There are three to five roles per group, but groups can have several representatives of a given role. Each group deals with an aspect of underdevelopment in Bangladesh and should consider the questions listed below for their group.

Group A: Inequities between social classes, land tenure problems

Is it fair to have unequal land tenure?

Do the poor deserve their ‘fate’? How can the rich behave in the manner they do?

Are interest rates fair? Are the poor stupid? Is poverty a matter of ‘God’s will’?

Is corruption inevitable?

Is famine a “natural” disaster?

The instructor should help the class by pointing out major findings and by generalizing carefully  the situation in other Third World countries.  In addition, the instructor should make explicit wherever possible the connections between global processes and the concrete situation of Bangladeshis.

BACK

 

Activity 3.3   Technological Change = Social and Environmental Change

 

Goals
Students gain an understanding of how changes in technology affect social relations, the character of communities, and the environment.  This is one way of looking at the interactions between local communities and global processes.
 
Skills

• data acquisition
• semi-formal interviewing
• critical text and data interpretation
• oral or graphic/pictorial and textual presentation of findings

• Access to the local grange, a farm bureau, a union, an employment office, archives, etc.
• Some background material and data on the chosen subject
• Battery-operated tape recorder (or simply a note pad and pen)

Using the agriculture example, students might look for data on the number of farms in their community, the size of the farms, the types of farms (meaning what was produced), the typical family size, number of non-family member workers, etc.  You can adapt this list for other subjects. In addition, students might look for old photographs and maps in local libraries and archives to compare them with more recent maps and pictures.

Finally, encourage students to interview their grandparents or other seniors of the community to get a more personalized notion of “the olden days.” Interview questions should relate to the kind of work they did, how they felt about their work and how they felt when things changed; how the community looked 30 or 50 years ago; whether they still know everyone in their neighborhood; and where their children are now and what they do for a living.

Students should report back to the class with a creative presentation, including visuals and text. If the project is more ambitious, you could schedule an exhibit of historical changes of the  community, to be displayed in the department, school library, or even the local city hall or gallery.  Such an exhibit could include photographs, interview excerpts, maps, a time line with significant data, as well as examples or drawings of old and new technology.
 
 BACK

Activity 3.4   Development (f)or Water?! and the Daily Water Log

 

Goals
Students will understand how development and environmental issues are related.  In many areas, issues surrounding water resources -- use, scarcity, development projects, pollution -- offer powerful examples of the local-to-global linkages between development projects and  impacts on  the environment.
 
Skills

• data acquisition
• analytical thinking
• critical contextual assessment of development efforts and trends
• maintaining awareness of one thing an entire day long
• measuring water usage
• simple calculations
• graphic and textual presentation of results

• Student Worksheet 3.4
• Access to U.S. Geological Service reports for the city or region or data from the municipal Department of Public Works
• Background information on a local or regional development project that would/did significantly affect water resources.  Large regional examples include: the depletion of the Ogallala aquifer, urbanization in semi-arid regions (Los Angeles), the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the diversion of the Colorado River
• Notepad
• Bowl
• Measuring or other cup

Part A:
In the first part of this activity, students learn about water issues of their community or region:  What are the water needs of this community?  Is there a water surplus or shortage?  Who are the big “water suckers” (certain industries, agriculture, households -- proportional shares)?  What is the source of the community/region’s water (groundwater, reservoir, import, etc.)?  What is the quality of that water?  Does it need to be cleaned before usage?  Where does the used water go?  Is there a water treatment plant (capacity, cost of operation, level of treatment)?

Divide the class into small groups.  If the subject, class size, and locality allow, ask each group to consider a different aspect of water usage, e.g., industrial uses, agricultural water pollution, thermal water pollution by power plants, the state of local wetlands, etc.  They should present their findings in a creative way  using the appropriate language and visual means depending on the chosen form of presentation.  Possible options include a slide show, writing a film script for a documentary or a report to the Environmental Protection Agency or the U.S. Geological Survey, or creating an educational brochure for the households of their community that would be geared toward water conservation.

Supplementary literature is certainly abundant.  Students could also interview an appropriate person at the municipal Department of Public Works, the U.S. Geological Survey’s regional center, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers local office, or someone from a locally involved environmental group.

Part B:
Once students have developed a basic understanding of water issues as they relate to development and the environment in their area, students will then explore their own role as individuals living in the community and depending on its water.  Students observe in a semi-scientific manner the amount of water they use on a normal day, what they use it for, and the many ways they are in contact with water.

From the moment of washing one’s face with water after waking up, to taking a shower, drinking water, flushing the toilet, washing the car, watering the house or garden plants, to doing dishes and laundry, we use a lot of water all day long without being really aware of it.  Some of us might be more aware than others, especially if water is a scarce or expensive commodity.  Encourage  students think about how their personal use of water relates to global environmental change.

Student Worksheet 3.4 lists examples of the types of activities that consume water. Students should not feel limited to these examples; they are meant simply to help them become aware of the many times a day we use water in one form or another.  The worksheet also provides guidelines on how to calculate actual water consumption from the observations made during the day.

Students should prepare a clearly organized report that lists their activities involving water consumption and the amounts (however quantified) that they used, summed over the whole day. Students may present their results in the form of pie charts or other graphics.
 

 BACK

Activity 3.5 What if...?  Is Your Community Ready for Disaster?

 

Goals
Students learn about their community’s preparedness for disaster and the difficulties such planning entails at the local level.  The activity illustrates the ways in which local communities may confront the effects of global environmental changes or the impacts from future disasters.
 
Skills

• data acquisition
• informal telephone or face-to-face interviewing
• analytical thinking
• scenario thinking
• team work
• report writing

• Student Worksheet 3.5
• Access to emergency plans and reports of past disasters for the local community (e.g., through the Federal or State Emergency Management Agencies, fire departments, civil defense offices, individual plans for industrial installations, or regional centers for specific types of disasters like the Hurricane Information Center in Florida)

If you have a large class, you may decide to split the tasks up by groups. Encourage students to acquire emergency plans from various agencies, to request time for an interview, or to speak with responsible personnel by phone. They might want to include maps and existing plans; they might create a realistic disaster scenario or base their recommendations on historical findings of past emergencies. You may show the class an example of a consulting report or leave the decision on how to present their findings to them.
 
BACK
 

 

Activity 3.6:  Think the Unthinkable!

 

Goals
Students imagine a worst-case disaster in their community and consider the potential impacts to its population and the level of emergency planning in the community.  This activity illustrates the ways in which local communities may confront the effects of global environmental changes or the impacts from future disasters
 

Skills

• scenario thinking
• communicating
• discussion

Begin the activity by asking students to imagine a worst-case disaster hitting their city, town, or region.  The disaster can be natural or human-induced, known or expected for your region due to its geophysical setting or its periodic meteorological extremes (i.e., an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, a tornado, a hurricane, or severe winter storm), or occurring at any of the industrial sites in your area (i.e., an accident in a nuclear or chemical plant, a mine explosion, or an airplane crash in an urban area).

Allow students to define the scope of the disaster (where it hit, how much of the town is affected, how many are injured, dead, how many buildings are destroyed, etc.).  More importantly, have them imagine the concrete first order (and possibly higher order) impacts.  Was there an emergency plan?  Are people following it?  Is it working?  Who provides help during an  emergency?  How long before help is in place and functional?  How long before people in the affected area can start the clean up, the repairs, and the recovery?

Remind students to think of details, and to be realistic about their scenarios; if they include a worst-case impact, they should have some good reasons for doing so.  Encourage them to start thinking about impacts in their own neighborhoods.  Specific and personal local knowledge helps to get students involved and to be grounded in a more “real” scenario.  Make sure they understand that this exercise is not about thinking up a flashy Hollywood action thriller script, but about imagining being personally stricken by disaster.
 
BACK
 

Activity 3.7   The Media -- Living by Disaster?

 

Goals
Students critically analyze newspaper articles for their coverage of U.S. and foreign disasters in order to assess how various notions about the value of life are portrayed.
 
Skills

• media screening (searching historical or following current coverage)
• critical assessment of news content
• comparison and interpretation of news
• creative writing
• oral or written presentation and discussion

• Newspaper and journal articles on a U.S. disaster and a disaster in another region of the world (e.g., Hurricane Andrew vs. an earthquake in Iran, or Three Mile Island vs. Chernobyl or the Sandoz fire in Basel, Switzerland). Choosing a current example would have the advantage of being able to include TV coverage.  Access to the New York Times Index would make the search for materials easier.

Tasks

Part A:
Students choose a U.S. and a foreign disaster (natural or human-induced) and look for newspaper articles of the events. Since media coverage usually drops off dramatically a few days after the event, students should go through several local and national daily newspapers and possibly some weekly journals (like Newsweek or Time).  The purpose is to find as many articles on the events as possible and then compare and contrast how the events were presented -- factually, in tone, in extent (length and number of articles), duration (days after the event), perceptions of the hazard, responses to it, and interpretations of the event (causes, blame, political and economic context of the disaster).

Students individually prepare a 1-2 page paper that addresses the following questions:

• Is there a difference in how the events were portrayed? What are the differences? How would you explain these?
• Are the media just disaster-hungry or are they genuinely concerned with people’s well-being?
• Are they biased toward events that cause more deaths, cause more damage, happen closer to home, or are dramatic in some other way?
• How do you explain such bias if you think it is there? And do you think the media correctly reflect what people are interested in?
• Do you think the bias in reporting has anything to do with the “value of life” -- i.e., that some people “count more” than others? If you think so, give some supporting evidence.

Another option for this activity is to take the Wysham (1995) article on “Costing People’s Lives for Climate Change” and to turn its message into a distorted cost/benefit report with a pro-Fankhauser slant (designed for the evening news) and a second version that conveys a more even-handed approach to climate abatement policy.  Other ideas include a portrayal of the causes of water pollution, the social and ecological consequences of deforestation, or an accident in a chemical plant.

The point of the activity is not to produce a lengthy script but to establish the idea of the “value of life” and how it plays out in our slanted perspectives -- consciously or not -- on daily life and world affairs.

Additional Questions for Discussion
If you choose to focus on the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, the following questions are suggested as in-class discussion topics. Feel free to adjust the questions to match the topics you discussed earlier with the class.  See Notes on Active Pedagogy for suggestions on leading a class discussion.

• Do you think Bhopal had anything to do with the Green Revolution? If so, what? (Draw a diagram to illustrate the relationships you think exist)
• Can Bhopal be viewed as a local community victim? Why? Why not?
• Has this tragedy been so readily forgotten because it represents a failure of the predominant international economic system?  How so?

• Were the lives of the U.S. citizens more valuable than those of the citizens of India?
• If not, how do you explain the difference in media coverage?

• Can development projects be environmentally sound?
• Should they be organized exclusively by local communities?
• Are small-scale projects better in principle?
• Are local communities the protectors of the environment and nation-states the foes?

Activity 3.8   Getting Involved

 

Goals
Students get involved in community volunteer work as a way to make connections between the community, democracy, and processes of globalization.
 
Skills

• participatory observation
• emergency intervention skills (dependent on service project)

Students clearly cannot be compelled to participate in emergency assistance, but the benefits of practical experience of such volunteer service are obvious and mutual for the community and the student. If you suggests such involvement, you should be ready to debrief students, especially in the beginning of their commitment. With due sensitivity to students’ experiences, such debriefing times could be used to make the connection between the individual experiences and the larger topics of the course including community -- local and beyond -- democracy, the driving forces behind globalization, etc.
 
BACK

 

Activity 3.9   Response Paper

 

Goals
Students write a short essay in which they synthesize the readings, discussions, and activities associated with this unit.
 
Skills

• text comprehension and reflection
• organizing a sequence of arguments
• writing

• Student Worksheet 3.9
• Suggested Readings: Stavrianos (1981), Dak (1989), Barber (1992), Huke (1985), Gupta (1991), Morse and Berger (1992), Thukral and Sakate (1992), and Wysham (1995).

Tasks
As a written homework assignment, after some class discussion or other activities, students write a relatively short (3-5 pages long) reflective paper on the following topic:
 
 
 

BACK