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Key Stage 2 geography · Human and physical geography

KS2 trade and economic activity: a guide for parents

Economic activity means the work people do to make, grow, sell and provide things, and trade is the buying and selling of those things between places. In Key Stage 2, children learn that jobs and industries are linked to a place’s geography, that countries rely on each other through trade links, and that many everyday products have travelled a long way before they reach us.

Economic activity and trade, explained

The starting point is simply the idea of work. Children sort economic activity into types. Primary activities take raw materials from the land or sea, such as farming, fishing, mining and forestry. Secondary activities make things, such as turning wheat into bread or steel into cars. Tertiary activities provide services, such as shops, teaching, banking and transport. Many schools use these three words, and some simply talk about growing, making and serving. Either way, the aim is for children to see that every product and every job fits somewhere in a chain.

Geography helps explain why different places specialise. A hot, wet tropical country can grow cocoa or bananas, and warm, rainy hillsides suit tea. A country with coal, iron or oil beneath it may mine and export them. A country with a good harbour may become a centre for shipping and trade. In Britain, the industries children meet include farming, fishing, manufacturing, tourism and a large number of service jobs, and they learn that the pattern has changed over time as some industries have shrunk and others have grown.

Trade is what links these places. Goods that a country sells abroad are exports, and goods it buys from abroad are imports. Countries trade because no place has everything. The United Kingdom, for example, is too cool to grow cocoa outdoors, so it imports it, while it sells goods and services to other countries in return. Trade moves by ship, aeroplane, lorry or train, and children locate some of the countries and routes on a world map. Schools often follow one product, such as chocolate, tea, bananas or trainers, from its source to a shop. Which product is used is the school’s choice.

Children also begin to ask who benefits. Schools may introduce the idea of fair trade, which means that growers receive a fair price for what they produce, and of food miles, which is the distance food travels. The aim is not to decide that all trade is good or bad, but to understand that choices about what we buy have effects on people and places elsewhere. The curriculum also asks children to learn the location and characteristics of a range of the world’s most significant human and physical features, so trade work is nearly always tied to a world map.

Words your child will hear

Economic activity
Any work that makes, grows, sells or provides something people want.
Import
A product that a country buys from another country and brings in.
Export
A product that a country sells to another country and sends out.
Trade link
A connection between places that buy and sell goods or services to each other.
Raw material
A natural material, such as wood, cotton or iron ore, used to make something.
Manufacturing
Making goods from raw materials, usually in a factory.
Fair trade
Trade where the people who grow or make a product are paid a fair price.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 2 says:

  • Pupils should be taught to describe and understand key aspects of human geography, including: types of settlement and land use, economic activity including trade links, and the distribution of natural resources including energy, food, minerals and water
  • This will include the location and characteristics of a range of the world’s most significant human and physical features.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

A worked example: following a chocolate bar

Where does the cocoa in a bar of milk chocolate come from, and what trade links does it show?

  1. Start at the source. Cocoa trees need a hot, wet climate, so they grow in tropical countries near the Equator. West Africa is a major source, with countries such as Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire among the biggest growers. Mark them on a world map. Growing and harvesting the beans is a primary activity.
  2. Follow the beans. They are fermented, dried and then shipped by sea to factories in other countries. These beans are an export for the growing country and an import for the country that receives them. Draw an arrow from the source to the factory.
  3. Add the other ingredients. Milk and sugar may come from farms much closer to the factory, perhaps in the United Kingdom. Different ingredients come from different places, which shows that one bar can use several trade links.
  4. Move on to making and selling. In the factory, the ingredients are mixed, shaped and wrapped, which is a secondary activity. The bar is then driven to shops, where a shop worker sells it, which is a tertiary activity.
  5. Ask who benefits. The farmers, shippers, factory workers, drivers and shop staff all earn money from the bar. Children discuss whether farmers receive a fair share and what fair trade labelling tries to do.

The cocoa is grown in hot, wet tropical countries such as Ghana, exported by ship and imported by a country that makes chocolate. Other ingredients may come from different places, and the finished bar passes through growing, making and selling. Many people in many countries earn a living from it.

Common mistakes and how to help

Everything we buy is made in the country where we buy it

Most children see products in a shop with no sign of where they began. Labels such as “made in” can also hide the fact that parts and ingredients came from several places.

What helps: Look at the labels on clothes, toys and food at home and find the countries on a map. You will quickly see the pattern of trade links.

Imports are bad and exports are good

Children often take sides when they hear that a country “sells” and “buys”. In fact most countries do both because no place has every resource or skill.

What helps: Ask what we could not have without imports, such as bananas, tea or chocolate. Explain that both imports and exports are normal and that trade works because countries need different things.

Economic activity means only factories and offices

The word “economic” sounds like money and big business, so farming, fishing, shops and teaching do not seem to belong.

What helps: Sort the jobs of people your child knows into growing, making and serving. A farmer, a baker and a teacher each have a place in the chain.

Fair trade means free or cheaper goods

The word “fair” can be confused with “free” or “cheap”. In fact fair trade aims to make sure growers receive a fair price, so the cost may be higher.

What helps: Explain it as fair pay for the people who do the work. Talk through who has to be paid for a product to reach a shop.

How to help at home

  • Label detectives. Choose five items from the kitchen or a wardrobe and find where each one was made or grown. Mark the countries on a world map or globe and join them to your home with string or arrows.
  • Follow a product. Pick a favourite food, such as a banana, tea or a biscuit, and work out the journey from farm to plate: who grows it, how it travels, who makes it and who sells it.
  • Sort the jobs. Make three groups called growing, making and serving, and place the jobs of family and neighbours into them. Notice that most jobs in the United Kingdom today are in the serving group.
  • Shop with a question. At the supermarket, look at the fruit and vegetables and ask which items could not have been grown here in this season, and where they might have come from. Check against the labels.

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