Starter Activity: Development Spin

This is a high impact starter for introducing development.

Before the lesson you will need:

A large bag of M&M's sorted into three piles - a big pile of 50 red ones, a medium pile of 30 yellow ones and a small pile of 20 green ones.

Also print out the pie chart below (or draw your own version) and add a red arrow by inserting a split pin through the centre to create a spinner.

Alternatively you could use 3 different coloured raffle tickets in the same ratios shown on the pie chart that pupils could select in a lucky dip.

As pupils arrive at the lesson invite everyone to spin the spinner and ask them to gather in one area of the classroom according to the colour they got.

When everyone has finished, all the yellows should be sitting in one group, all the reds in another and all the greens in a third.

The three groups are:

1. the most developed countries
2. the middle income countries, and
3. the least developed countries

The green group should then be given the smallest pile of M&Ms, the yellow group gets the middle pile of M&M's and lastly the red group gets the largest pile of M&M's. When you are done ask the group how fair the activity seemed. Hopefully this will generate discussion about the unequal distribution of wealth.