First Piece of the Puzzle

for my final project, I want to attempt to demystify the origins of the First World War, an event of the utmost significance but one which has been largely overlooked by most school curriculums. The primary audience of this project is high school students, and My goal would be to have them walk away from this exercise with a clear and concise idea of how the conflict started, and an understanding of the specific turning points that led to its outbreak beyond the simplistic M.A.I.N. (militarism, alliances, imperialism, nationalism) explanation that is typically thrown at them. Doing this is definitely easier said than done, especially in a way which accounts for the presence of AI in our modern world. My initial thought was a timeline of sorts, however this does not really engage students in any novel way and would likely be solved quite easily by AI. Another idea I had however was to combine elements of a timeline with an interactive interface, so that as certain events occur such as the Moroccan Crisis or the Sarajevo Assassination, a “threat level” meter will rise indicating the likelihood of war in Europe. I think this would be a good way to teach not only the causes of the First World War, but simultaneously demonstrate why they were causes in the first place. I would use primary sources such as documents, images, or quotes from individuals to illustrate these events.