Materials:	Primary literature about the Bakun Dam (or other projects); secondary literature on the historic, economic, political significance of dams; secondary literature on earlier dam projects in Malaysia.
Activity:	Divide class into six groups, corresponding to six major interest groups involved in Bakun controversy. Sizes of each group should correspond to relative strength and visibility of each group (e.g. fewer students in the indigenous people group, more in the Malaysian governments group). Each group reviews primary source material that describes their position (see appendix); groups then debate the project: is it good for Malaysia? Should the project go ahead?
Activity:	Prepare papers comparing the major issues relating to the Bakun project, with those encountered in dam projects elsewhere in the world. What are the similarities and differences in impacts, and in the processes by which decisions are being made?
Activity:	A basic issue of dams is that their justification, implicitly or explicitly, is often grounded on much more than simply the electricity, or water, or other immediate benefits that they will provide. Students can identify and compare the extent to which dams have served other than these immediate purposes (e.g. political, ideological objectives), at Bakun, and elsewhere (e.g. Quebec, the United States, the Soviet Union, Egypt, Ghana).
Activity:	Why were earlier dams in Malaysia (e.g. the first version of the Bakun project in the 1980s, and the Sungai Tembeling project) canceled, whereas Malaysian political and economic elites continue to strongly support the Bakun project? What conditions and/or priorities are different now?