Money makes the world go round

Trading game highlights key economic concepts

Our Year 10 Humanities class have been exploring the concepts of relative scarcity and opportunity cost in a trading game during our first Economics lesson. The class was split up into groups and each group, representing one country, was given different resources to make bookmarks. We had to make as many bookmarks as we could within half an hour, with the materials we were given. Some of us did not even have scissors or hole punchers so we had to either improvise or try to trade or borrow them. Several groups did not even have ribbons, which was a requirement set by our teacher! 

This activity was to highlight some key economic concepts such as relative scarcity, opportunity cost, and self-sufficiency vs specialisation of labour. It also tested our negotiation skills as we had to trade what we have with what we need or borrow what we needed, highlighting the fact that some countries have comparative advantage over others. 

We had fun making the bookmarks and Ms Lim has left them at the library so do check them out when you are at the library. Please feel free to help yourself to one!