repared by teachers from the New York City Board of Education:

Robert Hardman, Brooklyn Technical High School
(Historical Perspectives), Brooklyn, NY
Louise Maher-Johnson, Brooklyn Technical High School
(Oral Histories), Brooklyn, NY
Richard Krinsky, James Madison High School, Brooklyn, NY
Nancy Leib, Townsend Harris High School, Queens, NY
Nian "Sunny" Hong Liang, Fort Hamilton High School, Brooklyn, NY
Amparo Rivera-Gonzalez, Central Park East High School, Manhattan

FOCUS QUESTION
How can the use of specific data help us find answers to important questions on social, economic, and historical issues related to China?

TEACHING OBJECTIVES
Students will be able to:

1. identify data on China's social and economic status;


2. understand correlations between types of economic and social data, and;


3. evaluate the impact on economic development.

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES
Background: Some students may be unfamiliar with statistical tables and unsure how to use the data to draw inferences and make conclusions. This is similar to statistics used in the worlds of sports and popular music. Statistics provide a quick, easy to read indicator of strengths and weaknesses and allow one to compare performers.

Critical Thinking: Statistics are not dry numbers, but that they can serve as an introduction to fascinating stories about people and their history and culture. For example, ask students to discuss to discuss the following questions:

1. the number of countries in Asia where English is a major language


2. what this information says about the history of Asia (especially SE Asia)


3. how much do they know about the colonial era in Asia


4. do they know why French is spoken in Cambodia and Vietnam, Dutch in Indonesia and Chinese in several SE Asian countries?

Students can use language data as a basis for research into US, European and Japanese colonial eras or links between former colonies and old masters. Teachers can review the patterns to Chinese immigration to SE Asia.

Cooperative Learning: Within groups, have students compile a list of countries where the per capita gross domestic product exceeds $10,000. Have students list countries where life expectancy (male/female average) exceeds 70 years. With a few exceptions, students will find there is a direct correlation between income and life expectancy. Ask students to suggest reasons for this correlation. Some suggested examples: access to better nutrition, health care, education and housing.

Additional Questions and Discussion: Teachers may wish to extend this discussion about the statistics. Review the information that goes into the statistics and ask the following questions:

1. What is per capita GDP? Why is it useful in determining relative wealth of a country?
2. To what extent is a growing GDP a sign that living standards are improving in a country?
   (an even faster growing population will reduce per capita GDP and income disparity)
3. Under what circumstances would the HDI figures be preferable to the per capita figures?
4. What could be done to raise living standards (ratios)? Discuss ideas. Solutions include controlling population growth, investing in economic projects that affect the lives of as many people as possible, education programs, etc.
5. For more advanced students, teachers may want to introduce the concept of factors of production to explain why some countries are materially more wealthy while others are poor. Briefly, there are four factors of production: natural resources; labor; capital (machinery and factories not money); and, management (entrepreneur talent).

   Higher income countries have managed to maximize these factors and the result is a higher material standard of living (US and Japan). Despite the fact that Japan is considered a country with few mineral resources, it has maximized the other factors (highly skilled and educated labor force, advanced technology, and alert and sophisticated management that seeks new markets and methods of producing products that are desired around the world). This could also explain why China and other countries may have plenty of labor and natural resources, yet lack capital and managerial talent and are not as materially well off as Japan.

6. Teachers may want to assign students to review the considerable amount of material on the so called Asian Tigers to determine how they are going about improving their factors of production. Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia are some countries that can be assigned.