Topic 3: Economic Issues Affect Cooperation between Germany, the European Union, and Other Nations

Lesson 2
Step #3: Application

Strategy: Debating an Issue

How should efforts to protect Germany’s environment be funded?
Why are there difficulties in trying to set international environmental standards?

Activities

Have students in groups read the newspaper article in Handout #20: Topic 3, Lesson 2 (EU War on Acid Rain Threatens Coal Jobs) and respond to these questions:

What is the problem?
What is a possible solution?
What are other possible solutions?
Which solution has the best chance of succeeding?

Have students discuss as a group and then as a class the fears expressed by members of the British Trade Union Congress about the impact of environmental controls on the British coal mining industry.

Printable Student View

Have students work cooperatively to complete the Problem/Solution Outline graphic organizer. Have students write the question Why are there difficulties in trying to set international environmental standards? at the top of the graphic organizer.

This type of graphic organizer is used to represent a problem, attempted solutions, and results.

Discuss the problem and solutions represented in the graphic organizer as a class. Have the students work in groups to consider the following issue:

European Union environmental policy aims to clean up environmental damage at the source and make polluters pay for the cleanup of the pollution, even if the polluter is an EU nation, no matter how many jobs or money it will cost that nation, and no matter how much it costs the EU in terms of trade inside or outside its borders.

Ask students to identify the debate contained within EU environmental policy: Who should pay? At what point does environmental policy do more harm than good? Which is better – to protect the environment or the economy?

Select students on either side of this issue to debate these questions using their group notes in support of the debate. Have the rest of the class take notes and ask questions after the debate is finished.

Ask each student to choose a position and individually write a paragraph in support of one side or the other.

Printable Student View

Check for Understanding

FOCUS QUESTION #2: Why are there difficulties in trying to set international environmental standards?

Research the Kyoto Treaty signed by many nations that agreed to limit the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.

Is the Kyoto Treaty effective? Provide evidence to support your response.