The Opium Wars: Multimedia Presentation / Decision-Making Exercise (22 slides plus video clips)
“You will be presented with a series of issues which were controversial at the time and remain so today. You should make choices based on what you think is the most appropriate course of action according to your own preferences. At the end you will be told which political party/person you most closely resemble. At several points in the exercise your scores will be calculated and the class will be rearranged to sit on four tables, from the highest to the lowest scoring teams. At the end, each table will be told more about what exact political party / key leaders your views most closely represent”.
Teacher Tip: At the end of the exercise, get students to calculate their overall scores and use these to divide them into four roughly even groups:

• Conservative Imperialists (Benjamin Disraeli) = Highest scoring students
• Conservative Traders (Joseph Chamberlain).
• Liberal Imperialists (Lloyd George)
• Liberal Anti-Imperialists (Gladstone, Bright, Derby) = Lowest scoring students