Teacher instructions

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

15 minutes

Tune in: What is the best measure of a country's wealth?

20 minutes

Find out: Investigate the GDP of different countries

20 minutes

Take action: People and Planet Along with Profit - Minimising Negative Externalities

Tune in: What is the best measure of a country's wealth?

Step 1. Discuss:

How do we measure a country’s level of development? Students might be able to suggest advancements in human rights, laws, the state of living, the types of industry a country focuses, and (in Australia) how well our dollar is doing against the American dollar.
Why are these used as measures of development? Are they good measurements? There has been much scrutiny over the use of GDP as a measure of wealth, as it only looks at the financial situation of a country, ignoring the many other aspects that could arguably be used as a measure of a nation's success, such as happiness, health, or environmental protection. It is also argued that GDP only tells us how much money a country has, without telling us the story of where this money comes from.

Find out: Investigate the GDP of different countries

Step 1. Watch:

Euronews - The Gross Domestic Product explained (https://youtu.be/Gnql8t0GqcA)

Step 2.

Ask students to work in pairs to study the map and answer the questions about GDP on the Student Worksheet.

Step 3.

Independently, using the map and the table on the Student Worksheet, students answers the following questions:

What five countries have the highest GDP?
What about the five lowest?
What patterns did you observe in the GDP map? Were the highest and lowest GDP countries close together?
What else could you say about the living conditions in these countries

Step 4.

Ask students to view the second video of RFK speaking about GDP (see Teacher Content Information). Alternatively, students can read the RFK on GDP - Transcript. Working independently, ask students to answer the questions about the speech (on the Student Worksheet).

Once complete, engage students in a discussion about their answers. Consider the following questions in your discussion:

Do you think GDP is an adequate measure of the 'success' of a country? Why or why not?
Do you think it's important to have a measure other than money to determine the success of a country? Why or why not?
What are some other ways we could measure the success of a country?

Take action: People and Planet Along with Profit - Minimising Negative Externalities

Step 1.

The most recognised way of measuring a country’s level of wealth and economic progress is by calculating its Gross Domestic Product or GDP. The GDP of a country represents the total dollar value of all goods and services produced over a specific time period. GDP provides an indication of the size of a nation’s economy.

But what if there was a different way of measuring the economy? How would these indicators influence economic economic decision-making?

Independently, students choose a different economic indicator that GDP. Perhaps it is the happiness level of a country's people. Perhaps it is the overall health of the population? Perhaps it is the citizen's level of education, or how much great art they've produced.

Students develop a working model of this new GDP by answering the following questions (also available on the Student Worksheet):

What is a different way of measuring a country's success?
How will you measure this? How will you know when it is high and when it is low?
If this measure was implemented across Australia, what decisions (funding allocations, new laws introduced) would you expect to see from the government to promote growth in this measure?

Reflection

Invite students to share their new method of measuring a country's economy with the class.

Real Wealth - Economic vs Human Development

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Summary

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