Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Deadly Poison Discovered in U.S. Senate Office: 2/04/04
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june04/ricin_2-04.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What is a biological weapon?

2. How have biological weapons been used in terrorist attacks?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. Where was the toxin ricin found recently?

In an incident reminiscent of the deadly anthrax scare that killed five people in the fall of 2001, police at a Senate office building in Washington, D.C., Monday discovered traces of a poisonous substance called ricin.

The powder was found on a mail machine in the office of Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee.

2. What was the result of the discovery for U.S. senators?

Three Senate office buildings - the Hart, Dirksen and Russell - were closed Tuesday, and Capital police advised all lawmakers and staffers on Capitol Hill not to open any mail. Several members of Frist's staff were put through decontamination procedures (basically thorough showers), but health officials said the poison did not seem to have done any harm.

3. What is ricin?

Ricin is a chemical produced by the castor plant, a plant grown around the world. When a castor bean is mashed and processed, the water extracted can contain the molecule ricin which, when found in humans or animals, can cripple them by killing off cells.

4. How is ricin different from anthrax?

According to Fischer, ricin is not as dangerous as anthrax. Anthrax is a live spore of bacteria that can infect someone who simply touches it. Ricin is a toxin that has to be inhaled or eaten. It also takes a larger amount of ricin than anthrax to kill someone.

5. What steps are authorities taking to find out how the ricin got into the Senate office?

As of Wednesday, hazardous materials inspectors from the FBI and from the Capital police were searching for evidence of more ricin and examining incoming mail. The FBI will perform forensic analyses on all suspicious mail, checking it at their lab in Quantico, Va., for evidence such as fingerprints, hairs and fibers.

6. Where else was ricin discovered in recent months?

Also Tuesday, authorities revealed that a ricin-tainted envelope was intercepted in November at a facility that processes mail for the White House. Another was found at a postal facility in South Carolina in October. Both envelopes contained letters signed by "Fallen Angel" and included statements complaining about recent regulations that require truck drivers to rest before lengthy journeys.

Discussion Questions (more research might be needed):

1. Who do you think sent the ricin to Senator Frist's office? Why?

2. Do you think the U.S. is safe from terrorist attacks? What kind of attack do you think we are most vulnerable to? What should be done to prevent such attacks?

3. Research the criminal charges for someone who uses a biological agent to harm someone else. What are the charges? What punishments go along with those charges? Do you think someone who sends a biological agent through the mail with the intent of harming someone else should be punished in the same way as someone who uses other weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear weapons? Why or why not?

4. In the recent ricin situation, police evacuated Senate offices and shut down the building's ventilation system. What emergency steps does your school have in place in the event of a terrorist attack? Describe the steps. Who is responsible for creating those procedures and carrying them out?

Send your answers, in essay form, to extra@newshour.org for possible publication!