Silk - Free Classroom Simulation

World History Grades 9-10 6 roles 52 min 1 class period

Six merchant houses in six trading cities between China and Egypt, from the khans' wars of the late 1200s through the Mongol peace to the 1340s.

Six tables are merchant houses in six cities from Quanzhou to Cairo. They bargain face to face, pass goods from city to city while caravans move on the big screen, and live through the khans' wars, the Mongol peace and the 1340s.

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Class Time

52 minutes

Designed For

1 class period

Roles

6 roles

Class Sizes

18-36 students: 6 houses, 12-25 students: 5 houses

Learning Objectives

3 objectives

Standards

5 standards aligned

Where This Fits in Your Curriculum

Silk fits a World History unit on the Mongol Empire and the Silk Roads (C3 Framework D2.Geo.12 and D2.Eco.14; AP World Unit 2), after students know who the Mongols were and before or alongside a lesson on the Black Death. Students do not need to know trade terms or map routes first: the game teaches relay trade, credit and the roads by playing them. Underneath the theme it teaches how location and connection make a city rich, why the Mongol peace grew trade so fast, and how the same busy roads carried the plague to the best-connected cities first. The debrief turns what happened in class into a claim about geography and economics, and the exit ticket asks for one piece of game evidence and one historical fact. It serves World History 9-10 and AP World teachers who want students to feel the network before they read about it.

What Students Will Learn

Explain how relay trade moved goods across Eurasia city by city, and why crossroads cities grew richest.
Explain how the Mongol peace after 1304 changed trade on the land roads.
Explain how the trade network that made cities rich also carried the Black Death, and why the best-connected cities were exposed first.

Cases Included

AP World History 2.1 (Silk Roads) - relay trade: goods pass from house to house, and selling goods on before the market buys them is worth about 14% to a class; crossroads cities end with the most raw silver; paying on arrival is a simple form of credit
AP World History 2.2 (in part) - the Mongol Empire and exchange: era 2 is the Mongol peace, when land roads become fast and safe and trade in the game grows about five times
AP World History 2.6 - disease along trade routes: the plague rides the caravans from city to city, and busy cities are reached most often; each table decides whom it still trades with
AP World History 2.7 (in part) - comparing routes: land and sea roads change from era to era, and more goods go by sea in the 1340s
C3 Framework D2.Eco.14.9-12, D2.Geo.12.9-12, D2.His.14.9-12 - trade between cities that each make their own goods; a catastrophe, the plague, changing trade along the roads; causes and effects across three eras

Social & Emotional Learning (CASEL)

Aligned to the CASEL framework's core competencies. These are the SEL skills students actively practice while playing.

Relationship Skills Callers bargain face to face with neighbouring tables, and a buyer who pays on arrival keeps a promise.
Responsible Decision-Making Tables weigh risk with late news in the 1340s, and weigh credit against the clock in every era.
Social Awareness Tables notice what a neighbour needs, and see what shutting out a shaded city does to it.

Flexible Class Sizes

18-36 students: 6 houses

All six cities. Three to six students at each table.

12-25 students: 5 houses

No Tabriz: a city with no house trades with nobody, and its roads go unused.

How the Game Plays Out

Roles Your Students Will Play

Click any role to see their background and what they are trying to accomplish.

Quanzhou

Quanzhou is the great port of southern China. Its ships carry the porcelain of southern China's kilns. They sail the monsoon winds to India, where the goods change hands on their way to Egypt.

Goals

Earn more of the class's silver than a city in our place on the map usually earns.
Sell our porcelain to the cities next to us, and sell on the goods that reach us when a neighbour pays more.

Khanbaliq

Khanbaliq is the capital of Kublai Khan's Yuan dynasty in China. Its workshops weave silk.

Goals

Earn more of the class's silver than a city in our place on the map usually earns.
Sell our silk to the cities next to us, and sell on the goods that reach us when a neighbour pays more.

Samarkand

Samarkand is an oasis city on the land roads, in the Chagatai khanate. Its fields grow cotton. Three roads meet here.

Goals

Earn more of the class's silver than a city in our place on the map usually earns.
Sell our cotton to the cities next to us, and sell on the goods that reach us when a neighbour pays more.

Tabriz

Tabriz is the Ilkhans' great market city in Persia. Its looms weave cloth of gold with gold thread.

Goals

Earn more of the class's silver than a city in our place on the map usually earns.
Sell our cloth of gold to the cities next to us, and sell on the goods that reach us when a neighbour pays more.

Kaffa

Kaffa is a Black Sea port run by merchants from Genoa, in Italy, on land the Golden Horde rules. Its merchants trade furs from the north. Three roads meet here.

Goals

Earn more of the class's silver than a city in our place on the map usually earns.
Sell our furs to the cities next to us, and sell on the goods that reach us when a neighbour pays more.

Cairo

Cairo is the market city of Egypt, ruled by the Mamluk sultans. Its mills refine sugar.

Goals

Earn more of the class's silver than a city in our place on the map usually earns.
Sell our sugar to the cities next to us, and sell on the goods that reach us when a neighbour pays more.

Hand Each Student Their Own Sheet

One click on the teacher dashboard prints a dossier for every role - background, goals, key facts, and their confidential briefing - plus the primary-source packet and a vocabulary sheet. Print them, or save as PDF, so each student reads their role on paper instead of huddling around one screen. The app still runs the votes and the action; the paper just carries the reading.

Primary Sources

Every role includes real historical documents. Students read them because they need the information to make their case.

Key Terms Students Will Learn

Silk Roadscaravancaravanseraimerchantcreditrelay tradePax MongolicakhanateChagatai khanateYuan dynastyIlkhanateGolden HordeMamlukmonsoonBlack Deathquarantinebill of exchange

After the Game: Debrief Questions

Look at each city's silver on the big screen. Which cities got richest? What do they have in common on the map?
Why did trade grow so much after 1304? What did the khans' peace change?
On the map, which roads were thickest in the peace? Did the plague reach the cities on them? Why?
When a city was shaded, did you keep trading with it? What did that do to the people there? What did real cities do?
Did more of our goods go by sea in the 1340s? Why did real merchants turn to the sea then?
Was the plague a failure of the Silk Roads, or a sign of how connected they were?
Which city did the plague reach first? How did that city's roads help it earn silver? Which road brought the plague to it? Did the plague miss any city? Why?

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