Wheat Production Role Play

We played a whole class role play about Wheat Production. 
To get the students to understand several of the concepts of the unit we put together a role play so that they could experience the following: 

• How food gets from farm to table
• The process of food production 
• The challenges and opportunities the farmers, mill workers, factory employees, transport works and shop keepers face in the production of bread.
• What can you do if you do not have enough money to pay for transport of your product or the next group in the process cannot pay you? 
• How can we make it fair for all workers? 
• The choices people have to make when making food. 
• As a group how to effectively manage your money. 

The students were divided into groups  Each group had to make a product - seeds into wheat- wheat into bags of flour- bags of flour into bread at the factory and then finally bread sold in the shop. At each station there were transport costs. They were all interconnected and needed each other to make it work.

Teams could loan money from the bank, but this had to be paid back. The teams had to record their expenditure and profit. 

Each item had a cost that needed to be paid.

The role play raised many issues for the students and in discussions at the end they shared their frustrations at the challenges they faced and what they saw as the opportunities. It gave them the opportunity to experience the costs involved in food production and distribution. They also had to pay using dollars and experienced having to make choices when the dollars were running out!