Discovering Trade Dynamics
Hillel Torah
Ms. Schneider’s Social Studies class participated in a collaborative activity that simulated trade between countries over 1,000 years ago. The students were divided into five cities with varying degrees of wealth.
“Not only is this game competitive, which I love, it is actually connected to what we’re learning,” remarked Jordana Zwelling.
Each round had students trading and negotiating for specific resources in order to gain as much wealth as possible. However, after each round, new world situations would arise, causing some resources to go up in value, while others went down. Students had to reflect on these world situations in order to come up with the best trading strategy from round to round.
“This game will help us in the future with negotiating; it gives us great life skills and makes learning fun!” said Ahava Cohen.
“The game also teaches the students to understand the inequality of the world and how one place may be affected by an unexpected change,” said Noa Gavant.
This trading game will continue to be played throughout the year.
More thoughts from students:
- “As the game goes on, we add more events that happened in the times we are learning about…it is very fun and everyone can’t wait to play it again,” said Ayelet Appel.
- “At first I had no interest in this at all, but after I started playing I got so into it I didn’t even want to go to lunch, I would have rathered keep on playing,” said Ahava Cohen.
- “The game is such a creative and fun way to learn,” said Julia Bellows. “It teaches you that we don’t only get our resources from our country itself [but] we need to trade with others as well.”
- “I think that the game was a great experience and a new way of learning…I learned how to work with a group with people that I’ve personally never worked with in my life,” said Joey Amrami.
After game 1, Mecca leads in 7A, while Ghana maintains power in 7B – for now! To be continued…
