Specialization, barter and the first coins, the Silk Road and sea routes (with a reading passage and goods table), and how trade led to both cooperation and conflict.
New York State Learning Standards learning standard: 6.7a; 6.7c · barter, specialization and trade, and the goods and ideas that moved on the Silk Roads and across the Indian Ocean
How we explain it
Children can open this short lesson before they practice.
Specialization: people make what they do best and trade for the rest.
In barter, find the trade rate and scale it up. Coins (first in Lydia, about 600 BCE) made trade easier.
The Silk Road moved goods, ideas, religions and diseases. Trade brought cooperation, but also fights over routes.
Example: At a market, 2 baskets of grain trade for 5 fish. How many fish do 6 baskets get? 6 baskets is 3 groups of 2. 3 × 5 fish = 15 fish. Answer: 15
Trade Networks in New York
In the New York State Learning Standards, this is unit 11 of 15 in 6th grade Social Studies, after Trade Routes & Beliefs and before The Eastern Hemisphere Today.
Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.
A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.
Question 1
Did trade lead to cooperation or conflict? Sort each example.
Sort into: 🤝 cooperation · 🛡️ conflict
🗺️rival cities going to war over a trade route
🌱learning new crops and inventions from neighbors
💰disputes over high tolls and taxes on goods
🚢Rome and Carthage competing for Mediterranean trade
🏪merchants from many lands sharing a market
🪙using shared coins and weights
⚓a kingdom blocking rivals from its ports
📜kingdoms agreeing on trade rules
🤝 cooperation: learning new crops and inventions from neighbors, merchants from many lands sharing a market, using shared coins and weights, kingdoms agreeing on trade rules · 🛡️ conflict: rival cities going to war over a trade route, disputes over high tolls and taxes on goods, Rome and Carthage competing for Mediterranean trade, a kingdom blocking rivals from its ports
Hint: Cooperation is when societies work together and both gain. Conflict is when they compete or fight over routes, resources or profits.
Question 2
Seasonal monsoon winds helped sailors trade across the Indian Ocean, linking India with…
the Maya and Mexico
Iceland and Greenland
Central Asia's deserts
Arabia, East Africa and Egypt
Arabia, East Africa and Egypt
Hint: Ships sailed one way with the summer monsoon and returned with the winter winds.
Question 3
The first known coins were made around 600 BCE in which kingdom?
the Maya city of Tikal
Lydia (in present-day Türkiye)
Shang China
Ancient Egypt
Lydia (in present-day Türkiye)
Hint: Lydian coins were made of electrum, a natural mix of gold and silver.
Question 4
Mesopotamia had plenty of clay and grain but very little…
water
wood, stone and metal
sunlight
soil
wood, stone and metal
Hint: Mesopotamians traded their grain and goods for timber, stone and metals from other regions.
Question 5
Which statement best describes the Silk Road, according to the passage?
The Silk Road
The Silk Road was not one road. It was a network of land and sea routes linking China with Central Asia, India, Persia, Arabia and the Mediterranean world. It grew busy after China's Han dynasty sent envoys west in the 100s BCE.
Few merchants traveled the whole way. Instead, goods passed from trader to trader and city to city, and each trader added to the price. Camel caravans crossed deserts and stopped to rest and get water at oasis towns such as Samarkand and Dunhuang.
The routes carried more than silk, spices and horses. Ideas traveled too: Buddhism spread from India into China, and art styles and inventions moved in both directions. Unfortunately, diseases also spread along the same routes.
One paved road from Rome to China
A network of many land and sea routes
A wall built to keep traders out
A single river used by silk boats
A network of many land and sea routes
Hint: Look at the first two sentences of the passage.
Question 6
Use the table. A merchant wants to buy pepper. Which region should they trade with?
Goods traded along the Silk Road and connected sea routes
Region
Famous goods
the Roman Empire
glassware, gold coins, wool
China
silk, bronze mirrors, lacquerware
India
pepper and other spices, cotton cloth, gems
Arabia
frankincense and myrrh
India
the Roman Empire
China
Arabia
India
Hint: Find the good in the 'Famous goods' column, then read across to the region.