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: China Launches Manned Spacecraft, 10/15/03
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec03/china_10-15.html

Initiating Questions:

1. How many nations have sent a manned spacecraft into orbit around the Earth?

2. What do you know about the space race?

3. Do you think space exploration by humans is important? Why or why not?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What three nations have sent manned missions into orbit? List them in order.

The Soviet Union was the first nation to send a manned mission into space, followed by the United States and now China.

2. Describe the Chinese space mission. What is the goal of the mission? What is the name of the participating astronaut?

The Shenzhou 5, or "Divine Ship," departed from the launch center in the Gobi desert on its mission to orbit the Earth 14 times in 21 hours. China's first taikonaut, the Chinese word for astronaut, is Yang Liwei, a 38-year-old fighter pilot from an agricultural region of northeast China.

3. According to the article, why is China actively pursuing a manned space program?

"China is hoping that its first spaceman will help focus the attention of citizens on China's greatness rather than on the downsides of the country's wrenching economic transformation," said James Miles, a British Broadcasting Corp. reporter who has covered China for many years.

In a country where 140 million people live off less than a $1 a day, a successful mission could not only increase national pride but offer China a new seat on the world stage next to the most powerful countries.

"The goal is therefore highly political, and is aimed at projecting China above other regional powers, to an orbit where only the largest continental nations rotate," said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a China specialist at the French National Center for Scientific Research.

4. Which neighbors are concerned about the secrecy of China's space program? Why?

Japan and India fear that the secret nature of China's space program may mean that the country is trying to improve its military capabilities, although China has denied this.

"China has never and will never participate in an arms race of any form in outer space," said foreign ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue.

5. If China's mission is successful, what are the nation's future space goals?

If Wednesday's mission is successful, China plans to move forward with a mission to the moon, a space station and, eventually, a trip to Mars.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Are manned missions in space important? Why or why not?

2. Research the economic situation in China. Do you think that the growth of the space program there will help or hinder the lives of the majority of Chinese? Why or why not? Explain your reasoning.

Write a 300-500 word essay on either of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.