Unit Plan 8 (Grade 6 Social Studies): Early Communities and Trade
Explore how surplus production sparked specialization, barter, early money, and cooperative systems—revealing how trade, standards, and recordkeeping linked producers and consumers in emerging economies.
Focus: Examine how surplus production led to specialization, exchange systems (barter → early money), and forms of cooperation within and across communities.
Grade Level: 6
Subject Area: Social Studies (Economics • History • Geography/Inquiry)
Total Unit Duration: 5 sessions (one week), 50–60 minutes per session
I. Introduction
Students connect agricultural surplus to the rise of specialized roles, markets, and cooperative systems like storage, standards, and recordkeeping. Through simulations and primary-source–style artifacts, they compare barter, commodity money, and early coinage/ledgers, and evaluate how exchange shaped community growth and inequality.
Essential Questions
- How does surplus change who does what work and how people cooperate?
- What are the benefits and limits of barter compared to money and recordkeeping?
- How did trade link producers and consumers and create interdependence among early communities?
II. Objectives and Standards
Learning Objectives — Students will be able to:
- Identify producers/consumers, classify goods/services, and map specialized roles in early economies.
- Describe how people store and exchange value (barter, commodity money, coinage, tribute/taxation) and why systems change over time.
- Explain causes/effects linking surplus → specialization → trade → cooperation (standards, ledgers, authorities).
- Support a claim comparing exchange systems using evidence from simulations, images, and short texts.
Standards Alignment — 6th Grade (C3-based custom)
- 6.C3.Econ.2: Producers/consumers; goods/services; regional specializations.
- 6.C3.Econ.3: Earning, saving, storing, and exchanging value (barter, money, tribute/taxation).
- 6.C3.Hist.2: Causes/effects of key developments (surplus → specialization → hierarchies/urbanization).
Success Criteria — Student Language
- I can classify roles as producer/consumer and identify the goods/services involved.
- I can compare barter, commodity money, and coinage using benefits/limits and real examples.
- I can trace a clear cause-effect chain from surplus to trade and cooperation.