Students will work in teams to develop some of the organizational structures of a unified country. They will discuss the ways Qin Shi Huang unified China (through a unified monetary system, a great wall, a legal system, a unified system of weights and measures, and a unified system of writing). Qin Shi Huang used an army to enforce his rules. Students will discuss other ways to get people to work together such as voting and sharing through consensus.

State Goals

• Explain and demonstrate the role of money, barter, and other media in the exchange of resources, goods, and services in everyday life.

• Use nonstandard units (e.g. hands, feet, strips of paper, paper clips, etc.) to measure objects and distances.

• Demonstrate the way a society creates a unified system of money, measurements, and/or writing and explain why societies need unified systems.

sharing monetary system calligraphy

voting system of weights system of measurements

Materials

• string
• paper
• math manipulatives
• scale

• Students will break into teams of three people.

• Students will choose a leader, an encourager, and a scribe. Team leaders will tell the class how they chose their leader, encourager, and scribe.

• Chart the number of ways children chose the leader, encourager, and scribe. Some possible ways are to vote, draw straws, or play elimination games such as "Rock, Paper, Scissors" or "Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe." If someone demanded to be the leader, did s/he ask the others what they wished to be first? How do the others feel if someone demands to be the leader? How do you think the Chinese felt about Qin Shi Huang? (They still hate him 20 centuries later).

• In their small groups, the children will make a new unified system for one kind of societal need: money, weights, measurements, or writing. This is like making your own secret code, except the team must agree to the code.

• After designing their money, weight, measure, or writing system, students should name the items in their system and explain them to the rest of the class (e.g. children could use string of different lengths to indicate small, medium, and large units). They should name their units.

• If children are having trouble, first show them the traditional units and their names (millimeters, centimeters, meters, kilometers, or inches, feet, yards, miles, or pennies, quarters, dollars).

• Ask the student leader to show the class the groupâs system and tell them the names of each unit.

• Chart the different kinds of money, weights, measurements, or writing.

• Why is having one system of money, writing, or measurement better than having everyone do his own separate and sometimes secret code?

• What are ways to unify a classroom? A school?