Activity A: Nuclear explosion timeline Teacher’s Briefing Activity A: Nuclear Explosion Timeline Further notes Plenary activity Curriculum links Materials for Students Timeline cards Personal testimony Question sheet Download this resource www.cnduk.org/activity-a 7 Activity A: Nuclear explosion timeline: Activity overview Concepts to examine Overview The effects of a nuclear explosion, Through discussion and a timeline activity, students discover the massive and long their use in WW2, nuclear weapons lasting effects of a nuclear explosion. In considering the effects on Hiroshima and today. the effects of modern day weapons, students will come to understand the significance of the bombing and nuclear weapons today. Materials and space needed Sugar paper, thick markers, effects Note cards. Tables will be needed for small As the effects of a nuclear explosion are so vast and long lasting, there will group work and/or space for the obviously be overlap between the categories. Therefore, complete accuracy is not active version of this activity. essential. The activity is designed to portray the extreme effects of a nuclear explosion. Learning outcome By the end of the lesson: Instructions All students should be able to describe There are two versions of this activity, although they begin and end in the same way. some of the effects of a nuclear explosion. In small groups the students brainstorm what they think the effects of a nuclear explosion are and then feed back to the class. Most students will be able explain the long lasting nature of these effects. Version A – Small group version – Split students into small groups and provide each group with a set of effects Some students will be able to apply cards. On a large piece of sugar paper split it into eight columns. this to the bomb used in Hiroshima – Students then match up the effects on the cards to the time frame columns. and to UK nuclear weapons. There should be two to four cards per column. All students in the groups should agree where the cards go, with the answers reached through discussion. – Discuss the answers and their consequences as a class. Version B – Whole class, active version – Write the eight time frame categories on large pieces of paper and stick them up in order on the classroom wall. – Provide each student with an effect and ask them to go and stand next to the time frame they think is relevant. This must be done through discussion with other members of the class as they work out their position in relation to each other. Each time frame group should agree that the right people are in the group. This will involve conferring with each other and the groups on either side. When groups are sure they have the correct effects they stick them up with a temporary adhesive for easy movement. – Discuss the answers and their consequences as a class. Plenary Discuss some or all of the following questions as a class. – How similar were the effects to what you thought? Why were they similar/different? – How do you feel about Britain having such weapons? – When (if ever) should a weapon like this be used? – What do you think a nuclear winter could mean? Do you think this could happen in your lifetime? 8 Activity A: The effects of a nuclear explosion: Further information The effects on human beings can most miscarry or have a child with a range of about 215 warheads. The submarines easily be understood as a sequence of disabilities. Healing from injuries is often are stationed at the Faslane Naval base, overlapping categories: instantaneous, slow, leaving distinctive scar tissue. on the west coast of Scotland, and the near-immediate, short term and long Damage to the immune system is warheads are produced at AWE term. probable. Aldermaston and AWE Burghfield, near Reading. One Trident submarine is Instantaneous Long Term continually on patrol. In July 2016 When a nuclear weapon explodes, the Radiation-induced cancers will affect Parliament voted to replace the heart of a nuclear explosion reaches a many survivors, often twenty or more submarine system. Despite opposition temperature of several million degrees years later. Certain cancers such as from the SNP, the leader of the Labour centigrade. Over a wide area the thyroid cancer in children are Party and others, Parliament committed resulting heat flash literally vaporises all particularly associated with exposure to the UK to a new nuclear weapons human tissue. When the Hiroshima radiation. There are statistically higher system. This enables Britain to be bomb exploded, within a radius of half rates than normal of birth abnormalities nuclear-armed until well beyond 2050. a mile, all that remained of most of the and leukaemia rates in children of people caught in the open were their exposed survivors. There will also be Nuclear weapons around the world shadows burnt into stone. significant environmental damage. There are currently nearly 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world today – Near-immediate Hiroshima and Nagasaki enough to wipe-out the entire human Beyond this area all people caught in The bombs that were dropped on race, several times over. If there was a the open would be killed by the heat Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and nuclear war, with a number of nuclear and blast waves. People inside buildings Nagasaki on the 9 August 1945 exchanges, this could prompt a nuclear or otherwise shielded would be completely devastated the two cities. winter. The huge amount of dust, soot indirectly killed by the blast and heat Thousands died instantly and by the and smoke that would result from a effects as buildings collapse and all end of the year the death toll had nuclear explosion could enter the inflammable materials burst into flames. reached 240,000. atmosphere and block out the sun, The fires created would combine to resulting in massive climate change. make super-infernos, large enough to People continued to die for a long time have their own wind systems, depleting afterwards and are still dying today There has already been environmental oxygen from the area. This would cause from cancers attributed to the radiation. damage from the large numbers of people to suffocate. People would also The main reason usually given for the nuclear tests, more than 2000 to date. die from their burns, be blinded or attacks was to quickly end the war and Many of these have been conducted in killed from flying glass splinters from limit American causalities. However, the South Pacific and affected destroyed buildings. Medical services there is substantial evidence to suggest indigenous populations, leading to would also be destroyed. that the Japanese were trying to cancers and birth defects. Tests negotiate surrender before the performed in the Nevada Desert have Short Term bombings. It is important to consider also affected American citizens. Many survivors – either uninjured or other reasons for the attack, such as to with survivable injuries – will be establish US dominance after the war or Of the 15,000+ nuclear weapons that affected within a matter of days by to enable the US to observe the effects are currently in the world, the vast radioactive fall-out. The amount of of a nuclear explosion on a town. majority of these are held by the USA fallout that there is depends on Despite their catastrophic effects, the and Russia. The USA has 7,260 nuclear whether the bomb exploded in the air bombs used against Japan are now weapons, Russia has 7,500, some are or on the ground (the latter would considered rather small. Most nuclear being decom missioned. China, France spread more radiation). The area weapons in the world today are many and Britain have lower numbers with covered depends on the wind speed times larger. around 260, 300 and 215 respectively. and direction. The symptoms of India has 100 and Pakistan has 110. radiation sickness include hair loss, The UK’s nuclear weapons Israel, although it does not officially bleeding from the mouth and gums, The UK’s nuclear weapon system is state it has nuclear weapons, is thought internal bleeding and haemorrhagic called ‘Trident’ and is submarine based. to have 80. North Korea claims to have diarrhoea, gangrenous ulcers, vomiting, The system comprises four submarines, up to 10 nuclear weapons and has fever, delirium and terminal coma. each with the capacity to carry 48 conducted five tests in 2006, 2009, There is no effective treatment and warheads, loaded on missiles. Each of 2013 and two in 2016. USA, Russia, death follows in a matter of days. these warheads has 8 times the power China, France and the UK are all of the Hiroshima bomb and could kill signatories to the Nuclear Non- Pregnant women are highly likely to up to a million people. The UK has Proliferation Treaty (NPT). 9 Temperatures reach millions of The heat flash vaporises all degrees celsius in the centre of human beings around so all that the explosion and 6000°C on the is left is their shadows burnt into ground and even 600m beneath the stone. the earth’s surface. There is no effective treatment The heat and light is so intense for severe radiation sickness and it is like the centre of the sun. you would die within days. The heat is so intense that bones, Winds rage at thousands of flesh, skin, facial features and kilometres per hour. eyeballs melt. 10 People futher away from the The bomb releases radiation over blast receive burns and are a large area as it explodes. blinded by the flash. High temperature fires rage on Radiation sickness will set in for for days.