Post-Cold War · 1990-2010

A connected world: globalisation, 1990-2010

Shipping containers, the internet and open markets tied the world together as never before. A phone designed in California, built in China and sold in Rotterdam became normal. Students follow goods, money and ideas across the 2010 map and weigh who gained and who lost.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
12–15
On the map
3 steps, AD 2010
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

Shipping containers, the internet and open markets tied the world together as never before. A phone designed in California, built in China and sold in Rotterdam became normal. Students follow goods, money and ideas across the 2010 map and weigh who gained and who lost.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Explain how containers, the internet and trade rules connected the world economy after 1990.
  • Locate key hubs of globalisation: Rotterdam, Shanghai, Geneva and Bangalore.
  • Weigh the gains and losses of globalisation for different groups of people.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

AD 2010

Ports

Open the map in 2010 and turn on the Cities layer. Find Rotterdam, the largest port in Europe, and Shanghai, the busiest container port in the world by 2010. Follow the sea route between them. Which canal shortens the voyage?

Open this view on the map
b

AD 2010

Where the rules are made

Zoom in on Geneva. The World Trade Organization has been based here since 1995, and the World Wide Web was invented at CERN, just outside the city, in 1989. Why has a small neutral city become home to so many world organizations?

Open this view on the map
c

AD 2010

Bangalore

Travel to Bangalore in southern India, a center of software and call centers. Ask the atlas: "Why did many companies move their computer work to India after 1990?"

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. The shipping container was invented in 1956. Why did a simple steel box change world trade more than many inventions?
  2. Since 1990 hundreds of millions of people, especially in China, have escaped poverty. At the same time factories closed in Europe and America. Can both be true?
  3. In September 2008 a bank in New York, Lehman Brothers, collapsed and the crisis spread around the world in days. What does that tell you about how connected the world had become?
  4. The world's population grew from about 1.8 billion in 1914 to about 6.9 billion in 2010. How has that changed the planet?
  5. Does a more connected world make people more alike, or does it help them keep their own cultures? Give an example.
4

Game round

10 min

Play one round of Rule History as Mansa Musa, whose wealth came from trade routes across the Sahara. Then compare: how do trade routes of the 21st century differ from the caravans of the 14th, and what has stayed the same?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

€19 per month unlocks every worksheet, every live lesson and the class workspace. The free lesson prints without a subscription.