TITLE:  DEVELOPED or UNDERDEVELOPED?

AUTHOR:   Betsy Mahoney;  Moorcroft Elementary,
          Moorcroft, WY

GRADE LEVEL/SUBJECT:  Grades 5 - 12

OVERVIEW:  For many years there has been controversy about what it
means for a nation to be "developed" or "underdeveloped", "third world",
"haves" and "have-nots".  This activity is designed to help students
be aware of the controversy and to examine the meaning of development
to a nation and to man.

PURPOSE:  The purpose of this activity, used during a study of
world cultures and the connections between all people, is to help
students understand world issues and trends, value diversity (in
their classroom as well as among all people), and increase awareness
of their planet.

OBJECTIVE(s):
  Students will -
  1. identify and discuss the factors that make a country a developed
or developing country.
  2. examine their own definitions of developed and underdeveloped.
  3. create a product (scrapbooks, collages, poems, essays, etc.) that
depicts their view of developed or underdeveloped.

RESOURCES/MATERIALS:
Teacher Resources - slide projector and slides (I used some of my own and
borrowed many.  Try for a wide variety and some surprises.For example, I
used an elaborately decorated cathedral on a Montana Indian reservation,
Nazi concentration camps, a Paris street scene, the Acropolis, a shanty in
Appalachia, and a woman chasing a pig with a broom in a Swiss village, as
well as others.)

Student Materials-  pencils and paper, lots of magazine pictures, art
materials, etc., for products.

ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES:
  1. Without prior discussion, show the students a series of slides
featuring people and places from countries around the world.  For each
slide, students are to independently write in what country the picture was
taken, and does the picture depict a developed or an underdeveloped
situation.

  2. Refuse to discuss or define "developed" or "underdeveloped" while
showing the slides the first time.

  3. Show the slides a second time, this time discussing each one and
listening to the students' responses and interaction.

  4. Encourage students during the discussion to consider fuller ways of
seeing the world.

  5. In some way, discuss the definitions of "developed" and
"underdeveloped".
    I use brainstorming with the whole group and encourage the use of the
thesaurus.

  6. Work on individual or group products depicting the student's
definitions.


TYING IT ALL TOGETHER:
  1. Share the completed products with the class and perhaps the entire
student body.  Consider submitting some of the written work for
publication.

  2. As a follow-up activity, invite international students to visit the
class.

  3. Students will have begun to examine their own assumptions and are
now aware that development and underdevelopment could encompass
factors other than industrialization and technology.

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