TRADE GOODS AND CURRENCY
ANIMAL POPULATION

Grade Level:
4^th-6^th

Standards Integration:
Minnesota:
Grades K-4: Scientific Concepts and Applications-Living and Non-living Systems
A.4. How human behavior and technology impact the environment.
Social Studies-Historical Events
4. Give examples of conflict, cooperation, and interdependence among individuals, groups, and nations.
Grades 6-8: Social Studies-Geography and Citizenship
1. Identifying current or historical issues or conflicts that involve a particular region.
Write and Speak-Interpersonal Communication
3. Adjusting communication on the basis of verbal and nonverbal feedback.

North Dakota:
Grades K-4: Social Studies-Economic Systems
Understand the concept of supply and demand.
Science-Science and Other Areas
4.7.4 Understand how changes in environments affect populations of organisms.
Science-Life Science
8.4.3 Understand the importance of regulation and behavior of organisms.
Language Arts-Students understand and use principles of language. 7.8.4 Understand how language, both written and spoken, reflects a point of view.

Materials:
None

Objectives:

	Students will have a better comprehension of the concept of extinction through discussions about the trade in beaver and bison in the Red River Valley.
	The students will use sound justification and valid arguments to defend their opinions about using animals as a trade commodity.

Background:
The beaver population is estimated to have been 6 million when the first European explorers began to harvest the beaver as a form of trade currency in the 1660s. Trade resulted in the near-extinction of the beaver by the 1810s. The same occurred with the bison population, which numbered approximately 60 million in the eighteenth century but and were hunted to such an extent that they numbered less than 1,000 at the close of the nineteenth century. Both animals are prime examples of how humans can devastate the population of an abundant species within a short time frame.

Pre-Visit Activity:
Discuss the term “extinction” with the students. Discuss how and why an animal can become extinct. Explain that natural extinction occurs as, if not more, often than does extinction caused by human intervention.

Post-Visit Activity:
Continue a discussion on extinction. Ask the students to share their viewpoints about whether or not the Hudson’s Bay and North West Companies had a right to harvest the beaver and bison to generate trade and profit. Pose an apposite question about whether or not Native peoples were justified in using the bison and beaver to survive and as trade goods. Encourage the students to question issues of survival and economic profit in terms of how they affect the natural environment.