FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, August 27, 2002 CONTACT:
Brenda Bowser, (202) 293‑6970
bbowser@​deathpenaltyinfo.​org

AWARD-WINNING DEATH PENALTY CURRICULUM AVAILABLE FOR UPCOMING SCHOOL YEAR

Teachers say it fos­ters live­ly class­room dis­cus­sion, crit­i­cal thinking skills

WASHINGTON, DC — As the school year begins, an award-win­ning Internet-based cur­ricu­lum on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is offer­ing edu­ca­tors the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take this time­ly top­ic from the head­lines of the evening news into their class­rooms. The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), in con­junc­tion with the Michigan State Communications Technology Laboratory, has pre­pared this bal­anced edu­ca­tion­al tool that uses cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to teach crit­i­cal think­ing skills, group deci­sion-mak­ing, per­sua­sive-writ­ing, and civic responsibility.

This Curriculum on the Death Penalty is avail­able here. Using exer­cis­es such as role-play­ing, writ­ten reports, quick-writes, learn­ing jour­nals, and sim­u­la­tions, the cur­ricu­lum engages stu­dents’ inter­ests and allows them to thought­ful­ly con­sid­er the cen­tral issues con­cern­ing the death penalty.

“Recent events have con­firmed that the death penal­ty is a par­tic­u­lar­ly time­ly issue through­out the coun­try,” said Richard C. Dieter, DPIC Executive Director. ​“DPIC is proud to pro­vide this cur­ricu­lum for teach­ers to explore cur­rent issues in their class­rooms, and we are pleased that those edu­ca­tors who have used the cur­ricu­lum found it to be a valu­able and accessible resource.”

Praised by teach­ers and stu­dents alike, the cur­ricu­lum offers sep­a­rate teacher and stu­dent sites, two 10-day les­son plans, teacher overviews, and objec­tives meet­ing nation­al edu­ca­tion­al stan­dards. In 2001, it was used by the Division for Public Education of the American Bar Association as a resource for teach­ers and stu­dents, and dur­ing the past year, teach­ers in Washington, DC used it as the cur­ricu­lum base for a suc­cess­ful Capital Punishment Education Program.

Stephen R. Greenwald, President of Audrey Cohen College in New York City, not­ed the cur­ricu­lum’s val­ue in high schools, say­ing, ​“The Center’s web site pro­vides a com­pre­hen­sive and objec­tive overview of the major issues sur­round­ing the death penal­ty in a well-designed, inter­ac­tive for­mat. It’s a won­der­ful resource for teach­ers and stu­dents, and is espe­cial­ly use­ful in help­ing young peo­ple exam­ine their own beliefs and begin to form an opin­ion on this issue.”

The cur­ricu­lum has received numer­ous awards and has been cit­ed as one of the best edu­ca­tion­al resources on the Web. To learn more about this resource or to inter­view teach­ers who have taught its lessons, please con­tact Brenda Bowser at (202) 293‑6970. # # #