Activity
1. We
often think of our world today as “the global village.” Is
this really true for you and your students? Ask the students
to think about what they hear on the news about the United
States’s relationship with other countries. Often
the news concerns trade issues: imbalance problems, tariffs,
and protectionist policies. Ask the students to brainstorm
with you anything they have read or heard in the news
lately about the United States trading with other countries.
List on the board any news stories that are current.
Are European and Asian countries refusing to import American
beef because of a mad cow scare? Are American furniture
manufacturers protesting the importation of cheap Chinese
furniture? Is there a huge trade imbalance with Japan
since we import so much of their high tech goods and
they have very difficult markets for American goods to
penetrate. (This is actually a very complex cultural
issue.)
2.
All of this may seem far removed from your students’ personal
experiences. Yet, ask them to consider how much of
their everyday lives are impacted by the United States
trading
goods with other countries. They should also think
about what is shipped/trucked in from other states. How
much
of what we consume in a day comes from some other place?
What is actually grown or made in your city or county?
3.
Put the students into small groups and ask them to
fill out the matrix about trade’s impact on their
lives. Give the groups about half of the class time
to work on this, help them out if they need some help
thinking
about the big picture. Some places of origin will
be easy to find, such as looking at the labels on the
clothing that the students are wearing. They may need
to look
some things up on the Internet or make local phone
calls to supermarkets (the produce department) or car
dealerships
to find out where other products originated. Ask
the
students to use just one color of pen or a pencil
to fill out the matrix.
4.
Bring the class together again as a group and
go over each category of the matrix. Ask the students
to use
a different color of pen to write in ideas that
they did not come up with in their group but were heard
in the class discussion. Emphasize in the class
discussion
how much of what we consume is actually from other
countries.
5.
Now that the class is aware of how many things that they
commonly use or consume come from
other
countries
extend that awareness to embrace the whole realm
of disease transmission. Have the class read “Hepatitis
Outbreak Puts Heat on FDA.” Ask the students
to look at their matrices and to postulate what
other diseases could
ride in on the coattails of various products.
Closure
Ask
the students what they learned from this exercise. Did the
results surprise them? Try to guide them to the ideas that
our modern world is extremely dependent on trade to create
a quality life, for daily survival in many cases and that they
are consumers of a world market when they buy even the simplest
things.
Homework
Challenge
your students to keep their eyes open this evening. At the
dinner table they can share with their families how the food
they are eating comes from far and wide and the objects that
they take for granted each day, such as the television, the
furniture, their clothes, come from many, often distant, lands. |
