LightMySky

Global Trade

Why countries trade with each other; imports and exports; how goods travel around the world; that different countries use different currencies

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What a learner can do afterwards

  • Explain why countries buy goods from other countries (they can't make everything themselves)
  • Give examples of imported and exported products from their own country
  • Explain that different countries use different currencies and you need to exchange money when travelling

The lesson

No country can make everything it needs. One place might have rich farmland, another has factories, another has minerals in the ground. So countries sell each other what they have extra of, and buy what they're missing.

Exports70Imports30
Exports are goods a country sends out and sells. Imports are goods it buys and brings in.
Try it together

Bananas grow well in warm places like Ecuador, but not in cold places like Canada. So Ecuador exports its bananas to other countries, and Canada imports bananas because it can't grow its own.

Good to know

When you travel to another country, your money might not work there. Each country has its own currency, so you exchange your money for theirs at a bank or currency exchange before you spend it.

Countries trade because no one has everything, and they use different money to do it.

Watch it

Where it sits

Where this leads

Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.

Then practise

8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.

Global Trade · Life Skills, ages 9 to 11 · LightMySky