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Suitable for: Key Stage 4 and above, student teachers and teachers

Learning Objective:

• To learn about the unequal distribution of wealth in the world.

ESD&GC concept: Quality of Life

You will need:

6 x A4 or similar posters, one of each of the following:

Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, North America, Western Europe

20 or 30 chairs and the same number of students

Activity

This works best with 20 or 30 students, the rest can be advisors and help the others make decisions, or if you don’t have enough students, rope in any spare lecturers etc. You can also use up to two teddies or dollies as stand-ins.

1. Stick the posters evenly around the room where they can easily be seen, with plenty of space around them.
2. Make sure that each student has a chair, and that all other chairs and students are out of the way.
3. Explain to the students that their chairs represent all the wealth or money in the world.
4. Ask them to show where the wealth in the world is by arranging their chairs around the room under each continent, for example, they may want 4 in Western Europe, 3 in Africa, etc. They are working as a group, so make sure everybody agrees with where the chairs have been placed.
5. Now tell them that they themselves represent the population of the world, and ask them to sit on the chairs, or stand next to them, according to where they think the people in the world are. Check that everybody agrees.
6. Now let them know the actual figures (shown below). Start with the wealth/chairs. Try and start with continents where they have too many chairs – bring the chairs back into the middle of the room and ask them where they would like to put them. If you know they are choosing the wrong place, don’t say so – just place the chair there. Then give them the figures for that continent next.
7. Then do the same for the population. Try and do North America and Asia last, as it has more effect this way.

Discuss the results with students.

Sit with the one person in N. America. How do they feel?

Ask how the people in Asia feel about the people in N. America with all this wealth. Do they think it’s fair? Could anything be done about it?

Many innovative ideas may be suggested, and this is a good opportunity to talk about how it might feel to be given money instead of working for it, Fair Trade, the pros and cons of moving to other countries to work and many other topics.

This a good activity to use before the Millennium Development Goals activities