The citizens of Aquabania, students from Mr Ben Boucher’s 12th grade politics class at Bluevale Collegiate Institute, Waterloo, Ontario have created an interesting scenario in the last 2 weeks.
The Background Info:
During the first year of the country, both farms were producing food for the people, and business was good. As the demand increased, prices soared, and many citizens went to the government to complain about the issue. The government, wanting to please these dissatisfied citizens, put a cap on food prices, as well as the number of food units each individual could consume.
As you can imagine, the farmers weren’t too happy about this, and so the Farmer’s Market Co-op was born. As farmer and co-op founder Jordan stated:
Basically, there is a $400 fee to become a member of the Co-op, $200 to each farmer. Myself and Alex keep a list of our members, and those who are a part of the Farmer’s Market Co-op receive priority when it comes to buying food at the price set by the government. We reviewed the constitution extensively before implementing this organization, and we were pleased to find that we violated no laws as long as we sold the food itself at the price cap, and did not blatantly refuse to sell to anyone who was not a member. We were very pleased to report that all members of the Co-op received food this year.
Brilliant isn’t it? These students could have given up and simply sold the food at the set price, watching profits fall, and doing nothing about it. But they didn’t. They got creative, read over the constitution and found a way around it.
I really love this story. Creativity is an asset in all areas, and you can see this in the way that these students have been able to find a way around their predicament. In real life we often become stuck in our own little worlds with our set ways of doing things, and we never extend ourselves enough to discover our potential and life’s possibilities.
So while the idea of paying membership money to supermarkets before they allow me to shop there horrifies me, I think this is such a great example of how Civic Mirror is not just teaching students about social studies course content, but how it’s teaching them to think outside to box, to dream big, to try new things, and to not just to exist in the world, but to really be a part of it.
