President Reagan Star Wars SDI - Cold War & Superpower - GCSE History Edexcel - Lesson 1

This lesson covers the actions and Presidency of Ronald Reagan during the time known as the Second Cold War. Students will examine his tougher policy towards the Soviet Union and focus their attention on his ‘Star Wars’ Programme (Strategic Defence Initiative) and its importance and consequences at the time.

The lesson resources include:

• 1 x A4 Workbook Style Fact Sheet (PDF & PPT) – Included in every Cold War lesson!
• 1 x Main Power Point Lesson

The main PowerPoint includes:

• Starter: Students are given 10 technological developments of the 1980s and from the descriptions, have to identify what they were. This will give the students historical context to the 1980s and the amount of technological and scientific progress at the time.
• Background: Students will then be briefly taken through the background developments which cover Reagan’s main policies towards the Soviet Union and the increasing ‘war of words’ between the two sides.
• Task Sheet: (See image) this sheet questions the student’s understanding of the main developments of Reagan’s Second Cold War and specifically the Strategic Defence Initiative. There are 13 questions in total on the worksheet which require a variety of skills such as source analysis and explanation of importance and consequences.
• Recap: Students are given a table of 8 key terms from the lesson. Their task is to write a suitable question to achieve the key term as an answer. This task can be printed off for a written worksheet or simply displayed on the board.
• Extension Tasks: Two political cartoons are shown about the Strategic Defence Initiative. Students need to analyse their meaning.
• Exam Questions: Exam questions have been written for the students on this topic (consequence, narrative and importance).
• Information Fact Sheet: A printable fact sheet has been provided for the students to use in place or or in addition to the text book.****

All images used in this lesson are in the public domain and are therefore copyright free. Images which require attribution have been attributed in the notes section of each slide where the image appears. If you feel any errors have been made, please contact me at raschoolresources@gmail.com in the first instance to resolve any issues. My lessons are completed using PowerPoint and designed on widescreen formatting. Thank you.

This resource is for personal use only and for copyright reasons should not be copied/amended for commercial use.