Secondary School · Grade 9 · Ages 14–15
Where the Peso Meets the Dollar
The global channel · 6 sessions × 50 min
The flagship secondary unit teaches the channel millions of families live inside and almost no school explains: how two economies are tied together by three visible ropes — the exchange rate, trade, and remittances — and how pulling one end moves the other.
The year in depth
Six 50-minute sessions build the machine piece by piece. An exchange rate is just a price, and students learn to read it in both directions. A weaker currency creates winners and losers — students sort fifteen real-life cards under a weaker and then a stronger peso, and "strong peso = strong Mexico" gets respectfully dismantled. Imported inflation is traced as a five-link chain students must reproduce from memory. And remittances are treated with the respect they deserve: the dollars a family receives, the conversion rate, and the fees and hidden margins along the way.
The unit ends with its signature assessment: Explain It To Your Abuela — a plain-language written explanation of the whole channel, marked against a ten-point rubric. If you can explain it to your grandmother, you understand it.
What your students learn
- Read a peso–dollar quote in both directions, fluently
- Predict who wins and who loses when the currency moves — and defend it
- Write the five-link chain from weaker peso to more expensive groceries, from memory
- Decompose a remittance: amount sent, rate applied, fees charged, margins hidden
- Build a first mock portfolio and explain what diversification protects against
For the teacher
Complete teacher guide: six session plans (hook, instruction, activity, exit ticket), Three Ropes worksheet, Who Wins Who Loses sorting cards, optional family-interview extension, formative gates and the marked written task. Bilingual EN/ES key vocabulary throughout.