Introduction
Is it possible to measure peace?
What kinds of factors determine the peacefulness of a person, a school, or a whole country?
Search and discover…
The Global Peace Index is a project of the Institute for Economics and Peace, established in 2005. It seeks to identify the components of a peaceful society and to rank the countries of the world by their ‘peacefulness’. It also shows the economic benefits of investing in peace.
Search and define
- Open a new word document and write your own definition for the word ‘peace’.
- In groups of 3 or 4, share your definitions with one another, then try to agree on a single group definition of ‘peace’. Consider that you may be talking about different kinds of peace…
- Is peace only the absence of war, or does it mean something more?
- Is there a difference between peace at different levels? Personal/individual, interpersonal, community, national, regional, and global?
- What are the fundamental elements of peace, according to your group definition? (i.e. How do you know if peace is present?)
- Search online for definitions of peace, looking particularly at peace research institutions.
- You might start with UNESCO’s ‘Culture of Peace’ website, or the ‘Nobel Peace Prize’ website. (Make sure you view with a critical eye any online sources that are not well referenced, e.g. wikipedia!)
- Can you find a definition that closely matches the one on which your group decided?
- Read the list of 22 ‘peace indicators’ used to determine rankings in the Global Peace Index: (Select the image below to go to the ‘Vision of Humanity website’ then select ‘Specify Indicator’)
- For each of the 22 indicators that make up the Peace Index, countries are scored on a range of 1-5, where 1 = most peaceful.
- Do you agree that these are the most important indicators of peace? Are there any others that you think might be missing from the list? What are they?
Watch and learn
PLAY the embedded video below and watch an introductory video about the Global Peace Index and the idea of measuring and comparing the peacefulness of different countries.
Make a class map
- Visit the ‘Vision of Humanity’ website and study the current Global Peace Index map, which displays the varying peacefulness of different countries.
- Work together with your classmates to decide how best to create a large class copy of the Global Peace Index map.
- You might like to divide the map into sections and have different groups in the class copy and enlarge different sections, then put them all together…
- …Or you might decide to make a single, large world map first, then have different groups colour the different countries according to the GPI map.
- Display your class map on a wall in your classroom.
Compare peacefulness
- Download this worksheet: GPI country comparison worksheet [PDF]
- Complete the worksheet, referring to your class world peace map, and/or the Vision of Humanity website.
- Check and discuss your results with your neighbour. Consider:
- Which countries (if any) surprised you with their peace ranking?
- Why were you surprised?
- What factors made you assume the peace ranking would be higher or lower?
(Remember that only certain limited indicators are currently used to create the GPI, and statistical sources may be unreliable. If you are surprised or even sceptical of some of the GPI rankings, you may have good reason to be. Try to identify which important factors you are considering, which are not yet considered by the GPI, for example environmental impact.)
- Not only countries or governments influence peace and war in the world.
Write down 5 major world companies that you can think of (e.g., McDonalds) and discover their ethical rating or ‘peacefulness’at Shop Ethical:- How important do you think the peacefulness or ethics of companies and corporations are compared to the peacefulness of countries?
[SOURCES: The worksheets and resources in this RNW e-Learning Challenge were produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace, for the purposes of educating school students about the Global Peace Index.
Compare and contrast
Ask students to watch the both videos and list the metrics used to determine a country’s peace index.
Compare and contrast the difference between the two videos. Which metrics have stayed, which have changed, and which have been removed?
Ask students to think about what has changed in the past 10 years which may have influenced this change.
How peaceful is your school?
Congratulations…
you have almost completed the “Global Peace Index”, interactive learning challenge!
- Download and read the following case studies: Comparing the peacefulness of 2 schools [PDF] .
- Brainstorm with your class a set of indicators for determining the peacefulness of a school, drawing from the case studies and your responses to them.
- Download and complete the Reflection on school peace activity worksheet [PDF]
- Do you think it would be useful to rank schools in Australia according to their peacefulness? Why/why not?
[SOURCES: The worksheets and resources in this RNW e-Learning Challenge were produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace, for the purposes of educating school students about the Global Peace Index.]