Goals:

1. The students will locate given countries on a map.
2. The students will convert other nations' currency into United States' currency.
3. The students will work cooperatively with a partner.
4. The students will pose questions, express surprises about the worth of other countries' currency in American dollars and find other uses of unit conversions with fractions.
5. The students will use their writing skills to create a short story about themselves.

Resources and Materials:

1. Several copies of the abridged version of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
2. Monetary exchange rate information can be found on the Internet at http://www.ny.frb.org/pihome/statistics/forex12.shtml comparing currencies from around the world to the United States Dollar. (A word of caution about the web site: English currencies are in terms of the United States Dollar instead of in terms of their currency. This reverses the process of finding the currency exchange into the United States' Dollar.
3. Foreign money
4. Pencils and paper
5. Blank world maps with country borders, latitude and longitude lines and a map scale
6. A list of the countries that will be studied
7. Globes, atlases or large maps of various parts of the world

Time:

This lesson will need approximately 2.5 to 4 hours of classroom time with step three taking 15 to 30 minutes, steps four through six taking 45 minutes to 1 hour, steps seven through nine taking 15 to 30 minutes and step ten lasting 1 to 2 hours.

Procedure:

1. Each student will choose or be assigned a partner.
2. The students will be either given the web site with the monetary exchange rates or have time to retrieve the web site on their own.
3. Each student will receive a blank map and a list of countries that will be studied for the unit conversions. (Choose countries that are located in Western Europe and Eastern North and South America that are located on the web site. These countries are similar to where the setting of Treasure Island occurs.)
4. The students will locate and label the countries on the map using the list of countries and either a wall map, atlas or globe as a guide.
5. Show the students foreign money as a reference to how it looks different than the American dollar.
6. The students will make a table with six columns: Name of Country, Name of Currency, United States Equivalent (Exchange Rate), If I had X amount of _______, that would be equivalent to this many United States dollars:, Country Equivalent (Exchange Rate back to Country) and If I had X amount of United States dollars, that would be equivalent to this many (Country) (Country Currency):." (The Country Equivalent is just the inverse of the original exchange rate or it is the actual exchange rates given for the English countries from the Internet page.)
7. The students will list the countries that they mapped in the first column. Using the WWW page (from the resources), the students can find the name of each country's currency and the exchange rates.
8. Using the table, the students will convert the currency from the countries into United States' currency. One way to do this is by asking the students an open ended question such as "If you had X amount of (fill in each country's currency), how much United States dollars would you have?" The X is an arbitrary amount that can be picked by the students. (Hint: For easier conversions, have the students choose an X value between 10 and 1000.)
9. The students will calculate the United States Equivalent in Dollars (column four in table) using fractions. An example of a calculation is as follows: if X = 200 yen and the exchange rate is 126.8600 yen to United States dollars: ($1.00 / 126.86 yen) * (200 yen) = $1.58. The students will also calculate the other countries' equivalency using the inverse of the exchange rates.
10. The students will write reactions to the activity. There are numerous possible journal topics. The following is NOT an exhaustive list of possible items to include in the students' journals.
    • If I had X amount of Japanese yen, what could I buy?
    • Were you surprised by any of the calculations?
    • How can these unit conversions be applied to other topics excluding money conversions?
11. The students will write a short story about what they would do if they had found the buried treasure.
12. After the students write their initial short story drafts, the students will come back together with their partners to assess their partner's short story drafts. Students will use the Short Story Assessment Rubric to assess their partner's first draft.
13. Allow time for students to make the revisions and hand in a final copy of their short story.

Assessment:

1. Each student will turn in his/her completed table with the correct unit conversions. Each step in calculating the unit conversions into United States dollars must be shown. (Criteria for success - Ninety percent of all monetary conversions must be done correctly..)
2. Each student must turn in a correct completed map. (Criteria for success = Each person must have plotted every country correctly.)
3. The students will write in their journals. (Criteria for success - Each student will address the topic of unit conversions. As instructed by the teacher, the students must have either questions, surprises or draw conclusions in their journals.)
4. The students will turn in their final versions of the short story which will be assessed using the Short Story Assessment Rubric. (Criteria for success - Students will be successful if they receive a 2 on a two scale assessment, a 2 on a three scale assessment and an average of a 3 on the assessments where the highest possible score is a 4.)

Curricular Strands and Major Concepts:

1. Language Arts - Writing the short story about what they would do if they had found the treasure.
2. Math - Conversions of other nations' currencies into United States currency.
3. Social Studies - Locating and plotting the names of the chosen countries on a blank map.

Possible Extensions:

1. Extend the mapping activity by having students find the country'ss capitals as well as the country itself on their maps.
2. Allow students to pick a country of interest and trace the history of that nation's currency.
3. Have the students figure out the amount of money that gems and precious metals are worth. (E.g. - gold, silver, diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds.)
4. Let the students choose a country and research different aspects of it.

   
    
    

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