Topic 2: Governing the European Union

Strategy: Generalization/Principle Patterns

Activities

Lay a world map on the floor and have the students gather around it. Have the students take turns naming the countries that make up the European Union.

Repeat the activity. This time, have the students give a name to the region that identifies the country as part of a specific region. (The name can be made up using geographic features within the region.) List the names of the regions on the board. See if some of the regions can be combined under one name.

Show Slide #8: Topic 2, Lesson 2 (Regionalism in Europe) and compare the regions showed on the map to the ones created in class. Talk about similarities and differences in describing a region. Ask the following the question:

What constitutes a region?

Use the following graphic organizer to help support your answer to the above question. Use the Background Reading Handout #8: Topic 2, Lesson 2 (Europe: A Continent of Countries or a Composite of Regions?) and Handout #7: Topic 2, Lesson 2 (Europe’s Rising Regionalism) to help identify the traits that define a region.

Use Slide #9: Topic 2, Lesson 2 (Border Crossing Cooperation) and Slide #10: Topic 2, Lesson 2 (The Languages of Europe) to discuss how language and artificial borders complicate the issue of regionalism. Use this information to add information to your chart.

Slide #9: Border Crossing Cooperation

Slide #10: Languages of Europe

Use your chart to lead a discussion of the following question:

What characteristics of regionalism help to define the European Union?

Generalization: Europe is a composite of regions.

Trait:

Trait:

Trait: