RESOURCES: DPIC’s High School Curriculum on the Death Penalty

DPIC’s High School Curriculum on the Death Penalty, which was orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed in coop­er­a­tion with Michigan State University’s Communications Technology Laboratory in 2001, has been updat­ed and inte­grat­ed into DPIC’s main web­site. This resource cov­ers death penal­ty his­to­ry, legal pro­ce­dures, argu­ments for and against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, and nar­ra­tives of real capital cases.

The cur­ricu­lum now includes inter­ac­tive Tableau maps that allow stu­dents to explore state-lev­el data on mur­der rates, exe­cu­tions, and meth­ods of exe­cu­tion. There is also an inter­ac­tive exer­cise on select­ing a jury in a cap­i­tal case. The accom­pa­ny­ing Teacher’s Guide pro­vides sug­gest­ed les­son plans and activ­i­ties to spark class dis­cus­sion and critical thinking.

DPIC also con­tin­ues to offer Capital Punishment in Context, a col­lege-lev­el cur­ricu­lum cen­tered on four case stud­ies that illus­trate a vari­ety of issues in the appli­ca­tion of the death penalty.