Eighth Graders Gain Deeper Understanding of Modern Israel Through a Mock 1947 UN Exercise

As part of the eighth graders' unit on Modern Israel, students were tasked with partitioning Palestine.  Pretending they were living in 1947 and that they were representatives of neutral countries, they worked in small groups to try and create two equitable (though not equal) states. They had to consider: access to water, current population distribution, arable land, and the status of Jerusalem. Students found this assignment very difficult, much like the United Nations did at that time.