Lesson Starter - Satellite photo for economic systems

I use this great satellite photo to introduce types of economic systems. Usually get students to write down what they understand by the photo. You should get a range of answers from – “they have no nightlife in North Korea” to “North Korea has a controlled economic system and it is blacked out from failure of the electrical grid.”

I got the image from the book Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. The book looks at the lives of six defectors from the repressive totalitarian regime of the Republic of North Korea and how it collapsed catastrophically into poverty, darkness, and starvation under the dictator’s son, Kim Jong Il.