The Food Trading Game — Scarcity, Negotiation, and Trade-Offs
He Kēmu Hokohoko Kai · Experiencing resource allocation through simulation · Years 7–10
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga · Learning Intentions
- Experience how scarcity and unequal resource distribution create the need for trade.
- Practise negotiation skills in a resource-constrained environment.
- Analyse how starting conditions affect trading outcomes.
- Connect simulation experience to real-world food trade dynamics.
Paearu Angitu · Success Criteria
- Students engage actively in negotiation and articulate their trading strategy.
- At least two trade-offs made during the game are identified and explained.
- Students can connect their game experience to one real-world food trade scenario.
- Reflection addresses how starting position (advantage/disadvantage) affected the game.
Tīmata o te Kēmu · Game Setup
Your teacher will assign you a role. Read your role card carefully before the game begins. Each group starts with different resources — this is intentional.
Start with: 8 grain cards, 2 vegetable cards, 0 money. Need: money to buy seeds for next season.
Start with: 4 money cards, 2 grain cards, transport cards. Need: goods to sell at profit.
Start with: 6 money cards, 0 food. Need: 5 food cards by end of game or family goes hungry.
Game Structure — 3 Rounds:
- Round 1 (Free market): Trade freely for 5 minutes. No rules — just negotiate.
- Round 2 (Price controls): Teacher sets a maximum price for grain. How does this change things?
- Round 3 (Shortage): Half of all grain cards are removed. Trade with even less available.
Tūtohi Whakaaro · Negotiation Record Sheet
Record at least 4 trades you were involved in (either as giver, receiver, or observer).
| Round | What was offered | What was asked in return | Accepted / Rejected | Why? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Tātari Hua · Outcome Analysis
Who ended with the most resources? Why?
Who ended with the least? What happened?
Was the final outcome fair? Explain your reasoning.
Connect your game experience to one real-world food trade example. What similarities do you see?
Hononga Marautanga · Curriculum Alignment
Economic Understanding: understand trade, scarcity, and resource allocation. Understand how economic systems create winners and losers depending on starting position and rules.
Number and Statistics: calculate trade ratios and track resources across multiple rounds. Use proportional reasoning to assess fair exchange.
Tuhia ōu whakaaro · Write Your Thoughts
If the rules of the trading game were changed to prioritise manaakitanga (care for others) over profit, how would the game play out differently? What would change?
Aronga Mātauranga Māori
Traditional Māori exchange systems were not free markets — they were governed by tikanga that ensured obligations of manaakitanga, utu (reciprocity), and hau (the spirit of the gift). When a gift of kai was given, it carried with it an obligation of return — not as a cold transaction, but as a living relationship. This trading game, run under market rules, will likely produce unequal outcomes. After the game, students can ask: what would the rules look like if they were designed around utu rather than profit? Around manaakitanga rather than competitive advantage? These are not naive questions — they are the questions that alternative economic systems are built on.
Ngā Rauemi Tautoko · Resources already provided
- unit-10-week3-rice-consumption-calculation.html — provides the data context for understanding real food trade quantities
- unit-10-week1-scarcity-reflection.html — earlier work on scarcity concepts this game makes tangible
- unit-10-week3-rice-mapping.html — geographic context for global food trade routes
- unit-10-cash-crop-poster-checklist.html — extends inquiry into colonial cash crop trade systems
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions
Students will engage with this resource to investigate the intersection of kai (food), culture, and climate — exploring how mātauranga Māori approaches to food production, preservation, and distribution offer powerful responses to contemporary food security and climate challenges in Aotearoa New Zealand and globally.
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ Students can explain how traditional Māori kai practices (maramataka, kūmara cultivation, rāhui) embody ecological knowledge and food security principles.
- ✅ Students can connect kai culture and climate scarcity to contemporary community action and food sovereignty movements.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: Provide graphic organisers that map traditional kai practices to modern food security concepts at the entry level. Offer extension tasks asking students to research a specific iwi's traditional food system and evaluate its contemporary relevance, or to investigate a local food sovereignty initiative.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach domain vocabulary (food sovereignty, food security, kaitiakitanga, rāhui, maramataka) using visual diagrams and real-world examples. Draw connections to students' own cultural food traditions — these are valid entry points into the unit's themes. Allow oral or visual presentation of learning as alternatives to written tasks.
Inclusion: Kai is a universal human experience — all students have a relationship with food, seasonality, and sharing. Neurodiverse learners benefit from concrete, hands-on engagement with these concepts (e.g., examining a kūmara, mapping seasonal foods). Acknowledge diverse economic circumstances sensitively when discussing food security. Choice in how students demonstrate understanding (written, visual, oral) supports inclusive assessment.
Mātauranga Māori lens: The maramataka — the Māori lunar calendar — is one of Aotearoa's most sophisticated environmental data systems, encoding centuries of ecological observation about planting, harvesting, fishing, and weather patterns. Kūmara cultivation in pre-colonial Aotearoa was a feat of agricultural knowledge adapted to a new climate. Rāhui (temporary resource restrictions) is indigenous resource management — conservation before conservation. Kaitiakitanga frames the relationship between people and kai not as extraction but as reciprocal guardianship. These are not historical curiosities — they are living solutions to contemporary problems.
Prior knowledge: Students benefit from foundational understanding of climate change and food systems. No specialist mātauranga Māori knowledge required for entry-level engagement — the unit builds this knowledge progressively.
Curriculum alignment
- Place and Environment — Social Studies: Understand how people's management of resources reflects their values and their view of sustainability — and how mātauranga Māori frameworks provide models for sustainable resource management.
- Ecology — Living World: Understand how human activities and natural factors affect the distribution and abundance of organisms; evaluate the impact of changes on ecosystem health and food systems.