On Tuesday 19 November, History Club hosted its biggest event of the year: an exciting, immersive and thrilling forum on whether the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified or not! The forum was held in collaboration with Suzanne Cory and John Monash Science School. It was a resounding success: with over 100 students registered and over 85 participating on the day, it was one of the school’s biggest forums ever. Its purpose was to encourage students to collaborate in investigating the arguments and points of view surrounding this controversial topic.
The day began with a warm welcome from the club leaders and a fun icebreaker activity that prompted participants to pick which historical figure they wanted to have dinner with and why. This was then followed by two distinct and insightful guest speakers; Professor Timothy J Lynch from the University of Melbourne who explained why the bombings were justified with several eye-catching visuals and persuasive arguments, and Professor Beatrice Trefalt from Monash University who explored why the bombings were unjustified with immersive memoirs and sources. Students also asked questions and interacted with each guest speaker during their joint Q&A segment, allowing for lots of debate among the two speakers and audience! After this they eagerly participated in a long and exciting Kahoot trivia event on WW2, with lavish prizes for winners!
The day then continued with the main activity, in which students in their allocated table groups were to produce a 1-minute video or a short presentation explaining why the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified or unjustified. This was a fantastic opportunity for participants to conduct research, consider different perspectives, evaluate sources and work as a team, and it was great to see the enthusiasm and motivation amongst everyone. Finally, the day finished off with students presenting their videos or presentations to everyone else, with the one winning video group and two winning presentation group taking home a festive box of chocolates!
Overall, this was an extremely informative and successful event that prompted a lot of historical discussions and teamwork, which took months of preparation and work from the entire History Club Cabinet. With an overall score of 3.8/5 stars based on the audience’s ratings of seven metrics, the event was clearly well received, although room for improvement persists nonetheless! A huge thank you to Mr Bowen, Ms Capon, and the teachers of other schools for going out of their way to supervise and support this memorable event, which contributed heavily to its success. We cannot wait to host another year of fun events, meetings and gameshows so keep your eyes peeled!
