Dear Teachers of grades 4 and 5,

What does international trade have to do with your students? And why should you, or they, care about what happens in countries on the other side of the world?

If you think about it, international trade isn't just an abstract concept reserved for adults and bureaucrats. It's something that touches all of us each and every day. Much of the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the computer games we play, even the cars and buses your students ride to school every day are products of international trade. But how can we make sense of international trade and the many trade-related complexities and challenges we seem to read about in the newspaper more and more frequently?

The Boomerang Box project was designed to help students around the world learn about geography, transportation, and international trade. Through the tangible symbol of the Boomerang Box - a brightly-painted, 40-foot long cargo container that travels from port to port carrying cargo for customers of APL Limited - students get a firsthand look at how trade works and how it affects them. They get to travel along vicariously over countries and continents as the Boomerang Box travels from the United States to Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Australia, and South and Central America. And they get to meet the people who make trade happen.

We hope you'll use the Boomerang Box web site on a regular basis to bring the world into your classroom. The "Journey Log," which is updated with each trip the Boomerang Box takes, can be used to help your students strengthen their map reading skills or as a jumping-off point for research and history projects about different countries and ports. The "Trade Topics," which have been designed for students in 4th and 5th grades, offer an in-depth look at the cargo the Boomerang Box carries, the ports it visits, and the trade issues it confronts. And the "People Profiles" introduce students to fascinating people in a variety of careers who work in international trade every day.

To help you get started on the project, we've prepared this "Introduction to International Trade" packet, specifically geared for students in 4th and 5th grade.

This packet contains four lesson plans, each of which engages students in hands-on activities as they explore geography, international trade and the Boomerang Box. They focus on the basic questions of trade:

Click on icon above to download a high resolution file of the Grades 4-5 packet that you can view and print using Adobe Acrobat Reader software. If you do not have this free software, download it from the Adobe site. Click here for additional instructions on downloading acrobat files.

• Why do we trade?
• How do we trade?
• Where do we trade?

Each of the lesson plans has been designed to strengthen students' verbal and writing skills. Three of the lesson plans rely on everyday classroom materials; the fourth is designed to be conducted in a computer lab or with materials printed from the Boomerang Box web site.

We hope you'll enjoy introducing your students to the world of international trade through the Boomerang Box project. Please visit the web site often!