The class is encouraged to consider the journey their food takes from source to sale in the main activity by labelling the source locations of food products on a blank world map and drawing the trade link to the UK. Pupils discover that global trade enables us to have access to many foods that cannot be obtained within the national borders of the UK. The terms ‘import’ and ‘export’ are introduced and pupils learn that the natural resources available, land mass, and climate of a country determine what types of food they export and import. They use maps and atlases to locate the source of a range of popular food products from a typical shopping list. In this lesson, pupils are encouraged to consider where food comes from. The main activity involves creating a trade timeline which compares the scale of trade at three different time periods (The Stone Age, 17th Century and 21st Century). Pupils explore what developments have enabled trade to be carried out on a global scale, focusing on improved technology, transport, and communications.
They learn trade now links people in locations all over the world. Pupils gain an understanding of the geographical concept of scale, and track how the scale at which trade can be carried out on has increased through time, from local to global. They consider whether they could live without exchanging goods and services. In the first lesson of the module, pupils are given a clear definition of trade: ‘the buying and selling of goods and services we want and need’.