Create flashcards of several professions (carpenter, teacher, farmer, journalist and fisherman, for example). Choose a student to tell you what the professional on her flashcard can do (catch fish or make furniture, for instance) and what products or skills she would like to acquire (vegetables, or learning a second language). At this point, the student holding the corresponding professional must stand up and say how she can provide it and mentioning her own wish at the end. The activity shall go on until all of the professions have been discussed.
The way to acquire items from another professional is by buying them, using money. Explain this fact to students, and ask a student which single item he'd buy with $200. From then on, each student must say what the professional who receives the money can do with it. For example, the student would buy a gaming machine. The gaming machine's retailer would use the money to pay his employee. The employee would buy groceries. The grocer would pay his wholesaler. The wholesaler would buy gas from a gas station for his distribution vehicles, and so forth.
Ask students to check the tags of their clothes, bags or stamps on their stationery to see where each item was manufactured. They may find they were made in China, the United States, Taiwan or other countries. Also, show them pictures of German and French cars, or Greek and Spanish agricultural products. Use pins on a world map to show countries exporting the aforementioned products, and explain how global trade tightens economic interdependence between countries.
Economic interdependence is fluid, as individuals, businesses and countries may change their focus from one production sector to another. This means that a man can change career or that a business can move from hardware to software production. Draw a rectangle with a hardware business's name in the middle of the board. Form circles around it representing those it depends on (suppliers, distributors and warehouse owners, among others). Tell students that the company decided to focus on software production, and ask them to determine new or obsolete needs. For example, distributors and warehouses are not needed anymore, as Internet downloads and hard drives can do the job. This activity is more suitable for high school students.