This year in social studies ten, we are beginning to look at more recent history, and were starting it with World War One, also named “the war to end all wars.” The topic we are learning about right now is about how World War One started and what lead up to the declaration of war between fellow countries.

There are many ideas and concepts that people believe initiated the war, whether it was the Triple Alliance (Austria-Hungary, Germany and Italy) or the the Triple Entente (France, Russia and the United Kingdom.) Throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, tensions rose between the two groups as the advancements in technology, land vehicles, navies and weapons were being developed. This shaky relationship between the two groups led up to the killing of the Arch-Duke of Austria-Hungary Franz Ferdinand in 1914. This was the tipping point for the war, as Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, initiating the alliance bewtween Serbia and Russia. Russia then declared war on Austria-Hungary, which then started World War One, as the domino effect of countries declaring war on eachother began to fall in place.

Once learning about the lead up, we were told to create a visual representation of what happened prior to the outbreak.

Visual-

I had the idea of creating a map of Europe, using all the countries and the flags, then creating little comic-like strips telling the story of each major country in the war. During this time, treaties were being signed to protect eachother in case of a war, groups were made to advance the technology of their ships and weaponry stronger, and a war felt as if it was just about to snap into action through all the noise of “Franz Ferdinand’s death.”

In addition to this, we had to create another visual explaining the countries tension prior to the war. The assignment was to show what was the lead up and cause for Franz Ferdinand’s death and the beginning of World War One. Adam, Lucas and I chose to film our video and show the  countires tensions between each other. We filmed the alliances being created and the technological advancements they developed in case of a war outbreak. Here is our complete video.

Video-

This video my group created was so much fun to make. Not only was it comedic and entertaining, but also historically accurate. When we showed it to the class, I thought that they really enjoyed it. They especially liked our end scene when Canada comes in after Germany attacks the allies. Our teacher said it was excellent, but we could have added more information, which was true. Our video had only a little bit of info on the whole idea of why World War One started, so we could have added more on how these alliances were actually created instead of cutting right to the chase. Overall, I really think this was one of my strongest pieces so far this year in PLP, and I enjoy doing more of these types of projects in the future.

This was only part one of our World War One unit. Stay tuned for he next post. Bye for now!