Lesson Four: How are We Connected to Slavery?

Grade Level: 7/8                                               Subject Area: Social Studies
Time Needed: 2 60 minute class periods            Topic: Modern Day Slavery


Lesson Essential Question:
How are we connected to modern day slavery?


Materials Needed:

Objectives/Goals:
Students will be able to identify ways in which we are connected to people around the world.
Students will be able to define economic terms like good, producer, and consumer. 
Students will be able to describe the pathway goods take from producer to consumer.
Students will be able to discuss ways in which our choices affect the lives of people around the world and the implications that has for slave labor. 


NCSS Standards

III.  People, Places, and Environments
IV.  Individual Development and Idenity
V.  Individuals, Groups, and Institutions
VI. Power, Authority, and Governance
VII.  Production, Distribution, and Consumption
X.  Global Connectedness


 
MMSD Standards

 Economics

·         Explain how values and beliefs influence different economic decisions including money systems.  
·         Describe the nature of the labor force and the relationship between productivity and income.
·         Explain the relationship between economic development and the ways people satisfy their needs and wants.  
·         Explain how physical geography, specialization, demography, and trade influence the way people earn income.
·         Identify goods and  services and explain their use
·         Use economic information to make personal decisions, organize productive activities, and evaluate government economic policies

Geography

·         Use maps, globes, graphs, and supporting tools and technology to acquire and process information from a spatial perspective.

 Lesson Context: This lesson takes place during a unit focused on modern day slavery (also called human trafficking), with the overarching goal of teaching about slavery within the context of human rights and responsibilities. 

Lesson Opening:  Have students find a partner and help each other check the tags on their clothes.  Where are they made?  Most of our clothes are produced in other countries rather than here in the United States.  In fact, many of the things we consume are produced in other countries.

Procedures:

·         Have students will choose a product to trace to its source.  Using a computer lab, netbooks, or home computers, students should try to find out as much as possible about the path that their chosen product takes to get to them. 

·         Map the origin of the products students have chosen on Google maps.  This will provide a visual for students to see where some of the products we use each day come from.

·         Next have students brainstorm about how the products reach us.  As a class, make a list of things like who is involved, where materials come from, how things are transported, and how these things might affect cost.

·         In groups of 4-5, have students create a visual representation of the way goods (a product that is bought and sold) are created and passed from producers (or makers of the goods) to consumers (those buying the goods).  Students may choose a particular product which they did research on or make a more general model.

·         Use these models to generate a class model:

Picture
·         Now ask students where the money goes in this model.  Money is needed for transportation costs, factory jobs and machines, landowners, land workers, equipment, etc.  Student should realize that there is a great deal of money to be saved when workers do not have to be paid, or are paid very little. 

·         Using this model, we will look at a specific product: tomatoes.   On the board, create a flow-chart similar to the one above.  Using information from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) fill in the flow chart as a class.

Picture
·         Finally, as a class read this article from the Immokalee Worker’s Coalition:

http://ciw-online.org/Slavery_plain_and_simple.html

This article describes a case of slavery among tomato growers in Florida.  Discuss how slavery can be part of the product chain of different goods we consume. 

Closing:  Journal-Do you think there could be slavery in the product chain of any of the products you use?  If so, where do you think it might occur?  Who along the product chain is most vulnerable to slavery?  Discuss these questions as a class.  Be sure to talk about ways we can be aware as consumers about where and how our products are made. 

Assessment:  Journals will provide formal assessment and monitoring of class discussions will serve as informal assessment.