The overall goal of this exercise is to enhance students' appreciation of history and their knowledge of World War II by introducing them to historical World War II documents and enabling them to develop critical thinking and analytic skills.
Upon completion of this project, students will:
1. Identify factual information in specific documents.
2. Distinguish critical military information of high intelligence value from routing administrative data of lower intelligence value.
3. Identify false or irrelevant information.
4. Look at an event (Operation OVERLORD) from various perspectives. (American, British, Russian, French and German).
5. Recognize basic military terms of World War II.
6. Understand the importance of Operation OVERLORD to the Allied winning of World War II in Europe.
7. Gain knowledge of geography of England, the English Channel, the French coast and Europe in general.
8. Gain an appreciation of the complexity of conducting a massive, combined Anglo-American operation.
9. Identify intelligence information and intelligence collection systems.
SECONDARY OR ADDITIONAL OBJECTIVES might include encouraging students to understand need for tight security during Operation OVERLORD. This can lead into a discussion of national security information. Students might consider what determines the sensitivity of information and why certain information can remain security-classified and potentially sensitive years after an event has taken place.
