Aug. 8-14, 2013, Current Events Lesson Plan
Current Event:
Economists at Eurostat, the statistical office for the European Union (EU), recently announced that the longest recession to hit the eurozone has officially ended. The eurozone consists of the 17 European Union countries that have adopted the euro as their single currency. Eurostat officials said the eurozone’s recession, which began in the fourth quarter of 2011, ended during the second quarter of 2013, as the group’s collective economic output grew. The recession was the longest in continental Europe in the past 40 years. However, economic growth across the eurozone remained uneven. The bloc emerged from the recession mainly because of growth in France and Germany. However, the economies of some eurozone countries, including Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, continued to contract. Economists warned that despite the good news, Europe’s economy remains deeply troubled. For example, unemployment across the eurozone remains high, exceeding 25 percent in some countries.
Objective:
The European Union (EU) is an economic and political partnership between 28 European countries. The European Union has evolved from the economic cooperation that began among Western European countries in the early 1950′s. These countries eventually cooperated in economic affairs as members of the European Community (EC). In 1993, the EC members extended their cooperation into the areas of law enforcement and military and foreign policy. The EU was officially created when cooperation was extended to these new areas. The EU is a major economic unit. Together, the value of the goods and services produced by its members exceeds that of the goods and services produced by the any single country in the world. The euro, the basic monetary unit of 17 member countries of the EU and 6 non-EU countries, went into circulation in 1999. The Behind the Headlines news stories and related World Book articles explore Europe, the European Union, and other European countries.
Words to know:
- Euro
- Europe
- European Central Bank
- European Economic and Monetary Union
- European Union
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Gross domestic product
- Italy
- Netherlands
- Recession
- Spain
- Unemployment
Discussion Topics:
1. Ask your students to name the other continents besides Europe. (The other continents are Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, North America, South America. Note, technically, Europe is not a continent, but a peninsula of Asia.)
2. Ask your students what they know about Europe. (Students might say Europe includes the world’s largest [Russia] and smallest [Vatican City] countries; many important historical events, including the Renaissance, Industrial Revolution, World War I, and World War II, began in Europe; the majority of European countries belong to the European Union; European countries have some of the world’s highest standards of living.)
3. Ask your students to debate, “All countries of the world should adopt the same currency.”
4. Ask your students to use the World Book’s Timelines feature to create a timeline of the European Union. (Students may wish to use the History section of World Book’s European Union article for help.) Students can also use World Books Europe article to create a timeline of major events in European history.