Lesson Five: Movement of Product in the Eastern Hemisphere

Ms. Delaney
Grade Level: 7
Time Required: 55 minutes

Materials: Map of the world (copy for each student), Documents on IPhones, plastic water
bottles, wheelchairs, T-shirts, and gym shoes, white-board, markers, paper
Social Studies GLCEs: 7 E3.1.1 Explain the importance of trade (imports and exports) on
national economies in the Eastern Hemisphere (e.g., natural gas in North Africa, petroleum
Africa, mineral resources in Asia).
7 E3.1.2 Diagram or map the movement of a consumer product from where it is manufactured
to where it is sold to demonstrate the flow of materials, labor, and capital (e.g., global supply
chain for computers, athletic shoes, and clothing).
Lesson Objectives:
1) Students will correctly define import and export by composing a few sentences in their own
words following the trade activity.
2) Students will create a diagram of the movement of a Chinese export to demonstrate the flow
of materials, labor, and capital.
3) Students will construct an argument about which export is the most important to Chinas
national economy by composing a short paragraph explaining their choice and why they believe
that to be true.
Anticipatory Set: Students will reconvene in their groups after the brain break activity. The
instructor will ask the students to compose a brief definition of an import and an export based on
the activity completed before the brain break. The students will be given a few minutes to
complete that before the instructor asks for a few students to share. After the students have
shared their definitions, the instructor will identify key concepts from the students definitions.
The instructor will clarify that an import is a good or service brought into one country from
another. The instructor will clarify that an export is a good or service manufactured in one
country and sold to another country.
Procedure:
1) The instructor will begin by putting the students into groups of three or four. Each student
group will be given an item that China exports (IPhones, plastic water bottles, wheelchairs, T-
shirts, and gym shoes). The instructor will ask the students to think about how that product is
made. What natural resources does China need to create it? What materials does China need?
Where would it be created?
2) The students will use the generate, sort, connect, explain, elaborate reading strategy. They will
come up with a list of words related to the topic at hand and then connect those ideas and sort
them into categories.
3) The instructor will then give the student groups a document that details more about the export
they have been assigned. The document will contain the following information: cost to make the
product, profit made from product, where China makes the product, countries product is exported
to, and resources used to make the product and where they come from. The students should
check their work to see if they identified any of the resources.
4) The students will then be given a map of the world and they must locate where the resources
originate or are imported from, as well as the general area of construction. The teacher will give
the students the following oral and written directions: Students must construct a diagram that
demonstrates the flow of materials to China, and the flow of exports out of China. In other
words, the students must use their map to show what products China must import (and from
where) to create a product, and to where that finished product is exported.
Closure: To finish the lesson, the instructor will ask the student groups to share their diagrams of
Chinas products and a few key points from the documents they read. The instructor will write
down a few key points on the board as the students share. After all student groups have shared,
the instructor will ask the students to consider how their lives would be affected if China stopped
exporting the item they examined (So What!). Have each student group discuss and monitor the
discussions. The instructor will then have the students answer the following question to wrap up
the activity: What export is the most important to Chinas national economy and why do you
think that? This will be the students exit ticket. The instructor will assign the following reading
for homework: http://ecedweb.unomaha.edu/lessons/feog5.htm. This will be printed off with
various selections important to the next lesson. The students must use the connect, extend,
challenge reading strategy to connect ideas in this document to what we have already been
studying. The instructions for this strategy (with questions) will be placed on the homework.
Assessment: The instructor will examine the students definitions of imports and exports to
determine if they understand the general ideas of those concepts. The instructor will collect the
diagrams of the export maps, as well as the reading strategy generated beforehand, to look over
and assess whether or not the students can map the flow of material, labor, and capital. The
instructor will collect the students exit tickets and determine if their argument was concise and
demonstrated an understanding of the importance of an export to the world economy.
Accommodations for Diverse Learners: Students who have difficulty hearing, seeing, or
behaving properly will be sat near the instructor. Students who struggle with identifying
resources used to create the product, give them a simpler task, such as thinking about what
materials and services would be needed to make a book, as well as giving them the product for a
visual reference. For students who grasp the material with no difficulties, their learning can be
extended by asking them to consider more than one product in their argument and think globally.
The students can make an argument for different products based on the world economy.