Global Economy Top Trumps

A huge hat tip to Michelle Stephenson and Jonny Clark for giving me this idea for introducing some key macroeconomic numbers to my AS macroeconomists as they start their studies in economics this week - we will be playing Global Economy Top Trumps!

For this Top Trumps activity I have selected 27 countries including a mixture of established OECD giants together with some fast-growing emerging countries too. This selection of 27 prints off as nine cards per sheet of A4 - and seven indicators. All of the data is included in the attached spreadsheet, there is plenty of scope for teachers to choose some alternative data sets. Your students might also want to develop their own version of the game! My chosen indicators are:

* Annual rate of GDP growth in 2012 (per cent) 

• Annual rate of change of consumer prices in 2012 (per cent)
• Trade Balance (+ve or –ve) measured as a % of a country’s GDP
• GDP per person measured in US dollars for 2011
• Human Development Index ranking for 2011
• Unemployment rate measured as a percentage of the labour force - latest available data
• Latest ranking by FIFA (after all I do teach in a boy’s school!)

Basic Details

1/ Students are separated into pairs and compete against each other to win the whole pack of cards

2/ From the Excel spreadsheet - remember to print out enough sets of cards for each pair of learners in your class - it might be worth persuading your duplicating / learning resources team to print them out on durable card - they will get plenty of use!

3/ Give each pair a pack of cards and ask one student in the pair to shuffle the cards. Then, the shuffling player can deal out the cards (face down) so that each player has a roughly equal number of cards (27 into 2 doesn't quite go, you can also play this in threes though!)

4/ Players should hold their dealt cards face down so that they are unable to see the contents of the cards and then turn the top card around so that they are able to see only that card’s content

5/ The object of the game is for one of the players to win all of the cards off their opponent

6/ The player who has been elected to start must choose one category title to compete against his/her opponent e.g. human development index ranking. They will choose this category based on the one which they think that their subject has a strong chance of being better at then their opponent’s. The player calls out their category and then the value of that category.

7/ Their opponent reads out the value of the corresponding category on their card.

8/ Whoever has the highest or ‘best’ value wins both cards and puts them to the bottom of their own pack. Should the values on both cards be equal each person keeps their card and the game moves on.

9/ The next ‘call’ of category is given by the winner of the first round (should the round be drawn then the caller for the next round should be the last winning caller).

10/ The game continues until one player has won all of the cards or the teacher calls an end to the game (in which case the player with the most cards is the winner).

Follow Up

Try to leave enough time to play the game 2 or 3 times – perhaps run a competition within the group with winners moving forward into quarter or semi finals - this way the players are learning the key economic statistics more readily and finding out more about a range of countries.

Lead a discussion about what are the ‘worst’ and ‘best’ performing cards and anything that surprised the learners

There is ample scope for a follow up written assignment including reinforcing what each data series means, researching the background to the calculations and why a chosen indicator might be considered as important

Game Data

AS_Macro_Top_Trumps.xlsx

Many thanks to Paul Bridges at RGS Guildford who has developed the Top Trumps idea to include country flags - ideal perhaps for a new wall display in the department. Download his word file here: Top trumps poster set