Curated OER
What is Money? Learn the Role of Money in a Free Market System
Pupils view a seashell and listen as the teacher explains that these were sometimes used as money. They listen as the teacher lectures on medium of exchange, barter, and commodity. Students determine the number of chickens it would take...
Curated OER
TRADERS' GAME
Middle schoolers play a game aimed at demonstrating how relationships with other communities or countries affect the food and fiber system. The game simulates the unequal distribution of natural resources which creates the need for...
Curated OER
Buying Without Money
Students describe life in the Virginia colony. They explain how money, barter, and credit were used. Students simulate trading items among classmates. Students compare/contrast credit and trade.
Curated OER
Economics During Colonial Virginia
Students communicate their knowledge of life in the Virginia colony. They describe how money, barter, and credit were used. Students observe a United Streaming video on trade. Students complete a review guide and write an essay.
Curated OER
Let's Make A Deal
Students conduct a Swap Day to determine how bartering to exchange goods works. They trade something that they do not want for an item that they prefer.
Curated OER
Donut Dinero
Students set up a classroom currency exchange and explore the idea of bartering to get what they want. They create a monetary unit that is based on fractions and multiples of a standard unit, and compare this system to the U.S. monetary...
Curated OER
Trade Along the Silk Road
Students do a jigsaw activity that will enable them to understand the dynamics of the Silk Road trade.
Curated OER
Pioneer Currency in Utah: Have you got change for a 5?
Students explore the need for money in a society and the artificial value of coin and paper currencies. They design their own coin and paper currency.
Other
Scripophily: A Comparative Chronology of Money
Site provides various segments of historical dates from early Babylonian times to present. Time periods provide information about culture and the form of monetary exchange or bartering that took place.
Middlebury College
Middlebury College: Trade and Barter in Ancient Greece
Middlebury College provides an essay that uses ancient Greek mythology to explain how the Greeks viewed economic practices like trading and bartering.
Council for Economic Education
Econ Ed Link: Lewis and Clark Barter With Native Americans
In this lesson you will define the term barter and give examples of bartering in several different areas. Find out how this system took shape and was useful to Lewis and Clark. This site is extremely informative and contains extension...
Education.com
Education.com: Goods and Services: Let's Make a Deal!
[Free Registration/Login Required] Have your students experience the act of trading goods and services with bartering. In this activity, students will have the opportunity to make a deal, in order to get what they want. Better yet, make...
Council for Economic Education
Econ Ed Link: Hawaiian Economics: Barter for Fish & Poi
Use this lesson to learn more about the Hawaiian economics system. Learn how they developed and used this specialized type of money system. "In this lesson, you will learn how specialization and division of labor increased productivity...
Scholastic
Scholastic: Adventures in Math: Lesson 1: Money Basics
Why do we use money? Learn why we need money and to identify bills and coins.
Digital History
Digital History: The Eve of the Industrial Revolution
A brief review of how the nation changed from 1790 to the 1820s. See how the production of goods moved from the home to factories and read about the change in the way workers were compensated.
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Learning Lab: What Is Currency? Lessons From Historic Africa
From the Smithsonian, this site offers lessons and resources on currency, its use (in the form of gold dust, salt, or metal objects) as an instrument of trade in historic Africa, and its requirements as an instrument of trade in the...
The Franklin Institute
Franklin Institute: Bartering for Goods
The Franklin Institute Online explains what bartering is and how it developed down through history. A lesson plan and quiz are also provided.
Online Learning Haven
Fun Social Studies: How Money Began
A brief history of the barter system and how coins and currency came into use. Includes links to related topics on the use of money.