Description:

The comic book, The Story of Foreign Trade and Exchange, introduces students to issues about foreign trade and exchange rates.

Before students read the comic book, introduce concepts from the comic book including foreign exchange, export, import, comparative advantage, exchange rates, tariffs, quotas, and gross domestic product.

Have students read the comic book, taking notes on the relevant concepts (listed above).

After the students have read the comic book, assign sections of the comic book to groups of students. Have the groups develop role plays or skits based on the reading and present the role plays or skits to the class.

Post-reading activities:
Have students use information from the comic book to identify factors that might cause the dollar to appreciate or depreciate.

Assign individual students a foreign currency such as pound, euro, yen, yuan and so on. Tell students to track the exchange rate of the dollar to their assigned currency.

Have tudents use articles in the newspaper and Internet to hypothesize about the causes of the appreciation and/or depreciation of the dollar.

Have students use the newspaper to track the exchange rate of the dollar over a period of time and identify trends in the strength of the dollar relative to other currencies.