TOP SECRET: OPERATION ODYSSEY

Mission Brief: Each team will use strategic intelligence gathering, the objective is simple: win
the arms race by building your own nuclear arsenal from the secrets you uncover.

Approved Methods:
Use all technology available (cell phones included)
Use websites with the most valuable intel, examples:
JSTOR
Google Scholar
The National Archives
News Paper Archives
Other websites must be approved by the mission commander (teacher)
before use.
Additional approved resources: books, articles and microfiche. Seek out
authorization for alternative sources prior to use.

Rewards:
Passing random intel gathering inspections (carried out by the mission
commander during the research segment of each History class) will be rewarded
with one nuclear arms token.
In order to pass inspections you must be operating within mission
guidelines, using approved intel gathering methods.
When the team collects ten tokens they will be awarded with a nuclear bomber
token.
The team with the largest nuclear arsenal at the end of the mission will be dubbed
a super power and will be the first to face the realities of nuclear proliferation.

Behavior Contingency Plan: Operation Odyssey

Targeted behavior: Cell phone use in class which distracts from the lesson and provides students with erroneous
information. Googling for short simple answers to complex questions leaves students feeling that research let them
down and often leads to poor assignments.
Desirable behavior: Students will use their phones during designated research times in order to complete research
for a project based learning assignment they will be working on over a period of three weeks as groups. They will be
allowed to use their cell phone during research time and strongly encouraged to use scholarly websites which will
give them much more detailed information about the topics were covering in class. This will ensure that students
are on- task and well on their way to completing their assignment. They will also be familiarizing themselves with
Types of reinforcement: Immediate: The teacher will randomly inspect all of the students cell phones during
research time, if the students are using an approved research site they will receive one token (shaped like a nuclear
bomb). The student will then go affix the token to the bulletin board under their team name.
Delayed: For the overall project the students will be working in small groups, assigned by the teacher through
randomized stratification to ensure groups are composed of an even mix of the class population. Once a group has
collected ten tokens they will be given a larger token (a model of a small plane). The planes will be stored in a tiny
model airport, a lockable box with six segments, one for each team. During each class the students will be able to
access their plane(s); a log of total number of tokens each group has collected will be updated by the teacher daily
to ensure that in the event of disappearing planes the teams progress will be charted.
Overall: At the end of the project the two teams with the most planes will be dubbed nuclear super powers. The
team with the most planes will be allowed to go first in the concluding game of the project, based on the concept of
mutually assured destruction. The first super power will be told they have a nuclear arms stockpile totaling the
amount of bomb tokens they collected and given a list of cities they could target. They get to decide if they want to
launch a nuclear attack on the opposing super power (the second place winner). Once they decide their turn ends
and the other super power gets to decide if they wish to launch an attack, this continues with each team and
represents the threat posed by nuclear proliferation. If any team launches a strike all the teams immediately launch
in retaliation and the concept of mutually assured destruction will be mapped out so the students get to see the
impact one impulsive move can have on the planet.
Interactive learning activity: This research project is designed to supplement a project based learning module on
the Cold War in which students will be blogging about the personalities of world leaders who impacted the Cold War.
They will be given challenging questions about the impact of the leaders their group is assigned and have to
respond to these questions within their class blog. Peer editing and collaborative research will be encouraged
through research periods in class and collaborative online tools to assist one anothers research such as
Coggle.com.
Options: The expectation for this research project is that the majority of students will chose to research using online
sources by browsing on their phones or laptops. For students who struggle with reading dense text there will be
options to analyze primary visual or auditory sources. These will still be located using the research methods taught
to the whole class but alternative approved sources will still receive a token if they are being used during the random
intel gathering inspections.
Teaching the plan: The class in which this project is introduced the teacher will use interactive media to get the
students interested in the primary sources they will be locating during their research, teams will be formed by the
teacher and specific time periods within the Cold War will be assigned to each group. The class will be introduced to
the approved websites and given instructions on how to search for key terms including Boolean search terminology
to guide them in their research. Over the following several classes they will be mainly self-directed, each group will
have objectives and the teacher will be monitoring the groups to ensure they are on task and answer questions. The
final class of this project will involve presenting the findings to the class as a whole and be followed by the mutually
assured destruction game.