1. To develop awareness and appreciation of the importance of resources, compromise, politics and priorities in international trade.
2. To engage in group efforts in an attempt to meet a country's needs with limited resources.
3. To provide students with a global perspective on energy resources.
The social studies portion of this interdisciplinary unit focuses on world trade, with an emphasis on energy resources. Students play the roles of resource specialists for six real countries. Provided with knowledge of what their country has and what they need, students proceed to engage in trade with other countries in an effort to meet the needs of their own country. Students are provided with trading cards representing their country's food supply, energy resources and manufactured goods. An interesting twist is thrown in by also giving the countries involved cards representing nuclear waste. The point values on their cards indicate the number of units involved. Through this exercise, students will make a number of conclusions regarding the world perspective on energy resources and relationships between countries. They will likely come to realize that it may not be possible to meet the needs of every nation. This presents a number of issues that are ideal for discussion with middle school students.
Resources and Resource Needs of Various Countries (Appendix D)
Distribution of Resources Cards (Appendix D)
Energy trading cards (Appendix D)
Briefly introduce the activity before breaking students into country groups. Let students know they will be involved in an exercise in international trade. This is a trading game involving six nations (United States, China, Japan, United Kingdom, India, and Mexico). Each country may make trades for four areas of resources: Food, Energy, Manufactured Goods, and Nuclear Waste. Every country will know how much of each category of resource their country has to work with. They will also know what their country needs to meet their current demand levels. These nations must trade with each other to meet their needs.
Each country has a predetermined amount of each resource. For example, India has 7 units of food, but needs 34 units of food to meet its food needs. Each country must engage in "trade talks" to get the amount of food, energy and manufactured goods its country needs. They must also find a way to dispose of nuclear waste.
Show students the cards they will be using to trade with. (Once students get the cards, they will be anxious to begin trading, making it more difficult to keep their attention for directions.) Explain the color coding for the different resources. Each card may represent 1, 2, 5, or 10 energy units. Caution students to make certain they notice the numbers on the cards during trading.
Number or assign the students randomly into one of the six nations. There should be approximately 3-6 students assigned to each country (with the optimal number being 4). Each country needs a Food Specialist, an Energy Specialist, a Manufactured Goods Specialist, and a Nuclear Waste Specialist. These specialists will be considered experts in their field. They will be in charge of arranging and negotiating all trade agreements dealing with their resource. You may either assign students to these specialists roles, or have students select which resource they will represent.
Once the countries have been assigned, each group should color their own flag. Ask each student to make a name tag containing an appropriate symbol for their country, their name, and their trade specialty.
Distribute a table to each country listing that country's needs and resources. Ask each group to study their resources, and resource needs. As a group, each country should develop a plan of action. Determine what they are short of and what resources their country needs more of. Since the students do not know which other countries will be involved in the trading and the needs and surpluses of those other countries, no planning can be done in terms of which countries to approach for trading. To discover this information, students will need to ask the representatives from the other countries once trading has begun.
Once all of the preplanning has been completed, students should be given the correct number of game cards representing the resources of their country. (See materials list for how to prepare the cards prior to class)
Level 1: Tell students that the object of the game is to meet all of their country's needs by the end of the game. This is done by trading those resources that their country does not need. If you would like your students to use a treaty form when trading with other countries, a copy of this form is provided in Appendix D.
Discussion Questions:
1. How were trade agreements arranged during the simulation?
2. How did feel about your trading?
3. What happened to the third world country? Were they able to meet any of their needs? Explain (They probably ended up trading food for nuclear waste.)
4. How do you determine the winners? (Most students will say it is the one who has met the most of their needs. Perhaps someone will suggest that the winner is the country that helped the most other countries.)
5. How do the other countries feel about the United States after the trading? (Most countries may have felt anger toward the U.S. since they had so many resources, but may not have been willing to share them with other countries.)
6. What was the hardest resource for your country to get?
7. The resources for Saudi Arabia can be estimated to be the following:
Energy: Have 15 -- Need 2
Manufactured Goods: Have 2 -- Need 1
Food: Have 0 -- Need 1
Nuclear Waste: Have 0 -- Need 0
What can you conclude about the size of Saudi Arabia's population? Explain. (Students should be able to conclude Saudi's population is relatively small since they have no food resources, but need only one unit of food imported. How do you think Saudi would have done in the trade game? Explain. (Since Saudi has very few unmet needs, they would not need to trade much, although they have a great deal of extra energy to sell.)
Level 2: Time permitting, you may want to move students to Level 2 of the energy trade game. In Level 2, the object of the game is to meet the needs of all countries by the end of the game. This requires a great deal more cooperation. It will also demand that some countries give resources to other countries free. Have groups sit around the room in a circular arrangement and negotiate together. Give each country the summary table containing all of the countries needs and resources. This data will allow students to do some planning as to how the needs of all can be met through trading. You may wish to have students work out a plan in small groups. Groups could then present their plans at a mock United Nations session.
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