Urbanization

Leave it to Mr. Helmuth to come up with another great lesson.

Among other things we learned about urbanization today.  Urbanization deals with people moving from rural areas to urban areas (cities) usually for better job opportunities.

Mr. Helmuth had the center group be the city.  The groups around the center group were rural areas.  They farmed.  (Well, they had to draw pictures of farm produce.)  The people in the city produced other goods.  Then, Mr. Helmuth went around paying the agricultural group.  He paid them in scraps of paper.

After that, he paid the people living in the city.  ...He paid THEM in Skittles.

Finally, he said students were allowed to move somewhere else.  Obviously, students who were already in the city wanted to stay there to get more candy.  And the majority of the students wanted to be in that group as well, so they moved into the city.  And were paid in Skittles.

There were a few people who continued to farm.  Maybe they just liked it.  Maybe they didn't like Skittles.  Maybe the city group was over-crowded and they found that unpalettable.  Whatever the case, the activity worked.  It showed a majority of people moving to the cities (urbanization) in order to receive better pay.  While some people still stayed back to farm.

If you read and discussed this blog post with an adult - and you're in my class - you can earn some extra credit for it.  Simply write down what you decided - whether you decided to move or not - and tell why.  (If you were absent today, tell what you would have done.)  Then, have the adult you read it with sign the paper.

Turn it in tomorrow in the extra credit tray.

P.S. THERE WAS HOMEWORK TONIGHT...  FOR ONCE...