Activity 3: “Understanding Globalization”
OUTCOMES:
- To begin to understand globalization
- To understand globalization's impact on the goods and services students rely upon daily
TERMS: Globalization, Profit, Labor, Laborers, Economy
ARTIFACTS: none
PROCEDURES (Text consulted – Rethinking Globalization):
- Assemble the class in groups of 3-5 students.
- Look in your bag, at the tags on your clothing, at your cell phone, etc. For each person in the group, try to identify where at least one object you have with you was made. Do some research about this object. Chart your discoveries on a piece of paper.
- If the students are unable to do the research in class, you could assign this as a homework assignment for students to bring back with them the next day. Students would then need a little more times in their groups.
- Report out and discussion
- Each group presents their discoveries
- What do we know about each of the countries/regions where these objects were made?
- For those not made in the United States, why do you think these objects were made overseas?
- Who profits from these objects being made in another country but sold here?
- Who suffers or is exploited?
- Why do you think our economy is set up in this way?
- How is this conversation related to our previous conversation about a poor community? (these poor communities are not only exploited by local/national systems but by global ones as well)
Key Points
Over the course of the next few weeks we are going to be exploring how we are connected to each other all over the world. The ways that we are connected to the people who make our products (in China, Taiwan, etc.) is NOT NEW. The reality is that the world has been connected for a long time.