Balloon Debate (short story)

Balloon Debate
Companion(s):	Sarah Jane Smith, K9
Key crew
Writer:	Simon A. Forward
Release details
Printed in:	Short Trips: Companions

Summary

Balloon Debate

Purpose: To help Scouts to think about issues and form opinions on them. The issues and the opinions formed are then discussed in a group.

Development Stage: • Identifying the problems • Measuring change

Instructions: • The leader creates a list of people with very different backgrounds. These may be famous individuals, characters or types of people from the present day or historical figures. • Each Scout chooses or is given a person to be. • Each Scout is given time to think about their character and identify some reasons why this person is important to society. • The leader explains that the group are in a make believe hot air balloon which is loosing height. • To stay in the air, a person must leave the balloon. • Taking turns, each person explains why their character should be allowed to stay in the balloon. • Once everyone has spoken, the group must decide who should be evicted from the balloon. This can be done by taking a vote and the person with the most votes leaves the balloon. • The process then starts again, as the hot air balloon is still loosing height so that another person must be removed until there is only one person left. Each time the Scouts should think of a different reason why they should stay. • At the end of the debate, Scouts can discuss why the people left the balloon in the order they did, what were the characteristics or skills and attributes of the people who seemed to be the most and least valuable to society.

It is important that even when their character is no longer in the balloon the Scouts listen to the debate so that they can participate fully in the discussion at the end.

Equipment Needed: A virtual balloon can be created using chairs etc.

Characters

to be added

References

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Notes

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Continuity

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External Links

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