Unit Outline

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The growth of agricultural civilisations and empires from 3500BCE to 1800CE ushered in an era of increasing innovation in communication and transportation that led different parts of the world to connect in entirely new ways. The linking of the different world zones in this period and the exchanges that this linking made possible, transformed the lifeways of the people and civilisations involved - and laid the foundation for modern exchange routes and the global balance of power.

Statement of inquiry

"Unless managed, global interactions like trade can create inequalities in power and wealth"

global context

Fairness and Development (Imagining a Hopeful Future) - Students will explore rights and responsibilities; the relationship between communities; sharing finite resources with other people and with other living things; access to equal opportunities; peace and conflict resolution.

key concepts

​Global Interaction - The key concept for this unit is global interaction. We will examine this by considering how exploration has accelerated the interconnection and interdependence between human communities, including the ways people come into conflict with and cooperate with each other. This will be explored further by examining global trade networks.

related concepts

Disparity & Equity (Geography) - Equity involves concerns about fairness and justice. Disparity is the uneven distribution of a given quality, indicator or resource and it can be opposed to the concept of equity. Geography is often the study of the condition or fact of being unequal—recognizing that the world around us has inequality, disproportionate opportunity and discrepancy, which, creates disparity. What causes the gap between those that have and those that have not? What does it mean “to have” and to “have not”? What is the perception of a disparity? As a related concept, disparity should have a degree of scale and harness the essential drivers of disparity: economics, opportunity, access to resources, choices, values and freedom. Inequality might be based on gender, ethnicity, age, location, citizenship and income, among other variables.
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Trade (Economics) - Trade is the exchange of goods and services between the various participants in an economy. When people are allowed to trade freely, including across national borders, overall wealth usually grows. However, the gains from this increase in wealth may not be distributed equally. Trade can be limited by various factors including, but not limited to: war and terrorism, natural disasters, government regulations and taxes, control of markets by monopoly firms, and actions by workers such as strikes.

1. Why do people explore?

Explorers in the past and today continue to explore the world for a variety of reasons. This lesson seeks to explore the basic factors that encouraged early explorers to set out, leading to the ‘Age of Exploration’ in the 15th to 18th centuries.​

2. What is the impact of exploration?

The discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492 is still celebrated as a national holiday in many countries. Yet for indigenous communities, the arrival of Europeans is not fondly remembered. ​

3. How was trade unequal in the past?

This lesson explores how global interactions like trade can create inequalities in power and wealth. This is true today but also in the past. Students will explore this truism by investigating a traded commodity from the past in groups.

4. How does trade and exchange work today?

Interconnection and trade can bring tremendous benefits to human societies. But how does it work? This lesson will explore the principles and patterns of trade in the modern world, and evaluates how trade can lead to greater power but also greater inequality between nations.

5. Is the Global Trade of Chocolate fair?

Popular commodities like bananas, chocolate, cotton, tea and coffee, provide excellent examples of global trade networks. This lesson will explore the positive and negative aspects of these trades, as well as solutions to the inequalities they create.

6-7. Assessment: Researching Global Trade

The end of unit inquiry for this unit begins with an investigation into a globally traded commodity. It will examine the positive and negative aspects of the trade, before suggesting ways in which the trade could be made more sustainable.

8. Reflection: How can I make trade fairer?

This unit ends with a reflective lesson that first gives students time to consider their understanding of the statement of inquiry before examining how we can all pledge to make changes to our shopping and eating habits that could make trade fairer for all nations.