This curriculum unit is designed to engage students in grades 3 through 6 in activities demonstrating the benefits of trade. Students begin their exploration by participating in a "flea" market to determine what conditions are necessary for two people to agree to a trade and how trading makes people better off. Download a copy of this lesson.

They, then, move into a lesson where pairs of students play the roles of the tortoise and the hare, working together to win a contest. Through trial-and-error, they discover the benefits of

specialization, and they determine who has a comparative advantage.

In a later lesson, students read a story about how a boy and girl appear to use magic to solve a problem their village has. But all is not as it seems as their magic is revealed to be nothing more than good economics.

Throughout this unit, students are engaged in exciting activities, designed to illustrate why, no matter what barriers exist, people persist in trading for what they want.

This unit contains ten lessons, is three-hole punched and comes to you shrink-wrapped.

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