Lesson video

Hello and welcome to lesson five of the globalisation unit.

In this lesson we're going to be learning all about where were your close made? Let's have a look at the agenda together now.

So the first thing that we're going to look at in today's lesson is where were your clothes made? Then we're going to have a look at how far have your clothes actually travelled.

And then lastly, we're going to think about what are the environmental impact of manufacturing clothes.

It's going to be a very interesting lesson.

And for this lesson, you'll need three things, an exercise book, or some paper, a pencil, or a pen, and lastly, your brain.

So pause the video now to make sure you've got those things and then when you're ready, we'll get started with the lesson.

What we're going to do in this first part of the lesson is do a little bit of independent research at home on where were your clothes made? So in a moment, you're going to find some items of clothing that belonged to you and you're going to look at where was this actually made.

But before we do that, I'd like us to do a little bit of a recap from the previous lesson.

And what I'd like to start off with is this big beautiful map and what I'd like you to do is point on the map, which continent has the most well produces the most amount of clothing today, which continent was it that we mentioned last time.

Hmm, quite a few continents there.

Point at the screen.

Right, let's have a look if you are now pointing at Asia, you've got it absolutely correct.

Remember Asia, that is where much of the clothes manufacturing happens today and that is a change since globalisation, because previously in Britain, most of our clothes just came from Britain or Europe.

And as a result of globalisation, production has largely moved over into Asia and other parts of the world but the vast majority are in Asia.

Okay, back to this beautiful map.

Remember this is a zoomed in map of Asia.

Can you remember which countries in Asia are manufacturing the most clothing today, or which countries are the top producers of clothing today? Just to give you a moment to think which countries was it.

Okay, how many did you get? It's time for the big reveal those countries are, these countries.

So remember Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia.

They are all the top producers of clothing today and many of our items of clothing, including some, lots of the top high street brands they are all produced in those different countries.

What we're going to do now is the following.

What I'd like you to do is choose three of your favourite items of clothing and check the label to see where it was manufactured.

Once you've seen that, write down your findings, for example, this is my favourite shirt.

It's a nice flowery shirt, which I like to wear to parties and things like that and so I looked at this earlier, what I did is I had to find the label, sometimes the labels in different places, struggling to find it now, it's here somewhere.

Oh, that's right it's inside out.

And there on the label, here it is.

You can often see where it is made.

And so my label says, fancy that it says made in Bangladesh.

So once I've done that, I'm going to write that down on the right flowery shirt made in Bangladesh.

So you just need to do that now for three of your favourite items of clothing.

So pause the video to complete that task and then resume once you're finished.

Okay, that was a fun little exercise I'm sure and hopefully you're able to find those countries, on the labels.

Here are the countries that I found on my three favourite items of clothing so obviously I have my shirts, but I also chose my big winter coat as well.

That's one of my favourite items of clothing and a rugby shirt and this is where I found they are from and it's quite extraordinary actually, how well it matches up with our previous findings.

So my winter coat was made in China.

One of the top producers of clothing in the world today, my flowery shirt we know was made in Bangladesh fancy that right, again, one of the top producers of clothing today and my rugby shirt, interesting one not made in one of the countries that we recognise as being like the top manufacturers, however, it was made in Hong Kong, which is in Asia.

So again, it does fit with our map earlier that showed us that the top manufacturing continent of clothes is Asia and again, extraordinary, right my winter coat made in China and my flowery shirt made in Bangladesh.

So I wonder where your items of clothing came from.

Did they match with the countries that we looked at earlier? What we're going to do now is have a think about how far these items of clothing have actually travelled.

So now that we've identified where our items of clothing have been manufactured, what we're going to think about is how far have your clothes travelled? And the reason we're doing this is because it is a great example of the impact of globalisation and example of how connected the world that we live in is so here's what you're going to do.

For each of the items of clothing you have chosen find out the distance it has travelled from where it was manufactured, okay.

So for example, my lovely flowery shirt was manufactured in Bangladesh and now I'm here in Britain so I need to calculate what is the distance in miles from Bangladesh to Britain.

Now you may be wondering, how am I going to do that? Well, I'm going to show you a couple of different ways now.

So the first way that you could do this is I have produced this map.

It's the map shows us the top close manufacturing countries and on that map, it shows us for each country, how many miles away from Britain, those countries are.

So, one way you could do this task is by using this map, but you may be saying, well, Mike, my item of clothing was made in a country that's not on the map.

Well, if that's the case, maybe just use an approximate distance.

If the country is close to one of the countries on this map, or another way you could do it is if you do have access to the internet, you could do a little search for the answer.

Don't worry, this is completely approximate, but you can either use the map option or your own little research option.

So when you're ready, pause the video and calculate how far each item of your clothing that you've chosen has travelled.

Okay, interesting exercise, right? Don't worry if you weren't able to figure it out for each one, but if like for one or two items of clothing, you've been able to calculate it using the map or using your own research, great job.

Here's what I found when I did this for my items of clothing.

So Mr. flowery shirt here has travelled 4,965 miles to my house from Bangladesh to Britain, extraordinary.

My rugby shirt, which came from Hong Kong has travelled the furthest that's travelled 5,976 miles and my winter coat, which was made in China has travelled approximately 5,055 miles.

So these are huge distances and greater distances than most human beings will travel in a year.

Now, I wonder how far your clothes travelled? Did they travel further, less? Interesting, well with our items of clothing now, there's just one more thing that I would like us to do.

So what I would like you to do is to plot the journey your clothes have travelled onto a map.

Now your map, I'm not asking you to produce the world's greatest map it can just be a rough sketch of the world but the key thing is you plotting the journey I.

e or by that, I mean drawing the journey, your clothes have travelled onto that map.

Here's an example for you.

Now you're probably thinking, wait a minute, Mr. Barber, you didn't draw that map did you? Okay, I didn't draw this map, but once again, don't worry you can just draw a very rough sketch of a map.

The key thing is plotting the journey.

So as you can see on my map, I've labelled the different countries where my items were of clothing were manufactured or made and then I've drawn a straight line from those countries to my, well my house, approximately, but basically to Britain to show us how far those journeys really are.

Remember though, the reality is that may not exactly have just been a straight line journey a lot of these items of clothing are carried by boat.

So it wouldn't be as easier journey as that, but on your map, all you need to do is find the countries where your clothes were manufactured and then draw a straight line to where you are today.

So when you're ready, pause the video to complete your task and then resume once you're finished.

Okay, well done on completing that exercise I know I've asked a lot of you today, so great job in doing that.

Hopefully this has been a valuable exercise in reflecting on how immense or how huge the distances, the products that we have in Britain travel before they arrive to us.

And the key thing to remember is this has only become possible because of, what's that? Globalisation, you're absolutely right, because globalisation has increased the connections between countries and cheaper transport has made it much easier for those items to arrive to us today.

Let's move on to the final part of the lesson.

So we've now seen the immense journeys, that clothes go on to arrive into our shops and homes.

What we're going to do in this last part of the lesson is think about what are the environmental impacts of manufacturing clothes.

Because the fashion industry, the clothes industry, it is now a huge industry that generates a lot of money, but this comes at a cost to our environment.

So one way that the manufacturing of clothes harms the environment is because of carbon emissions.

So we've seen the long journeys that those items of clothing has been on.

Sadly, the longer the journey, the more carbon emissions that are going to be produced from planes, trucks and ships, which transport these things.

In fact, the clothing manufacturing industry, they account for 10% of all humanity's carbon emissions.

And this is important because carbon emissions are contributing to global warming.

Another way that the clothing manufacturing industry is causing harm to the environment is through the use of a material called polyester.

Many items of clothing are made of polyester and I'm sure that you'll probably have an item of clothing, which is made of that material as well.

Sadly, using polyester produces two to three times more carbon emissions than using another material like cotton.

So again, that environment is being harmed by this manufacturing process.

Another way that clothes manufacturing is harming the environment is through water pollution.

In fact, the second largest cause of water pollution is through the dyeing process when making clothes.

So when you dye the clothes, that's how it becomes a certain colour but the problem is the water that is often leftover from that dyeing process is then thrown away into ditches, rivers and streams and that creates a lot of pollution, particularly for the people who are actually producing those clothes, because it is their water sources that will be polluted by the dyeing process so to sum up carbon emissions from transport, harming the environment, the use of polyester and the carbon emissions that come from that harming the environment and the water pollution that comes from the dyeing process remember that the changing colours of materials also, what's that? That's right, harming the environment.

Based on that information you're now going to complete the following task, answer the following question.

Describe two ways the fashion industry is harming the environment? Two ways that they are harming the environment.

Well, we've actually just been through three ways and I'm going to show you how I would answer this question, and then you're going to complete it on your own.

So here's one way that the fashion industry is harming the environment.

So one way the fashion industry is harming the environment is through carbon emissions, actually not thumbs up, thumbs down.

This harms the environment because so it's really important that you don't just state how they're harming your environment, but you also explain it as well so this harms the environment because the ships, planes, and trucks that transport clothes across the globe produce high levels of carbon emissions, sad times that is contributing to global warming so that's an example of how you can answer this question what you're going to do now is pause the video to complete your task and then resume once you are finished.

And if you need a little help to get started, here are some sentence starters that you can use.

Okay, let's go through that together now.

So here's what I wrote and my first example I've changed this time, just so we can cover all the different ways.

So one way the fashion industry is harming the environment is through carbon emissions again, this harms the environment because the use of polyester creates high levels of carbon emissions.

So remember one material that they're using is polyester, but to produce that it creates way more carbon emissions than cotton.

Another way the fashion industry is harming the environment is through water pollution, this harms the environment, because the water leftover from the dyeing process is often dumped into ditches, streams or rivers not good, and something that we need to solve as a planet.

That brings us to the end of this lesson.

Well done on all the fantastic learning that you've achieved but before we finish, there are just two things that we need to do.

First of all, write down three key things that you'll remember from this lesson and then lastly, don't forget to complete the exit quiz at the end, so you can see the tremendous progress that you're making on this globalisation unit.

I look forward to teaching you again soon and have a great day.