Weighing the Value

When Noelle is creating a Lifer, she thinks about the style of the clothing, how it was originally meant to be worn, how it was made, what the worn spots say about how its original owner wore it, and how it was decorated.

Noelle wants to remind us that every piece of clothing holds a story worth preserving, and Lifers helps to tell that story. 

At the same time, Lifers also makes us think about how the ways we make and use our clothes affects the Earth around us.

The effects of the fashion industry affect water, the climate, the workers involved, and the waste we produce.

By testing and investigating the price of clothing and comparing it to how long those clothes will last, we can discover the real value of the clothes we wear and learn to make sustainable choices in the future.

Step 1

Explore the village shops and keep an eye out for the Undercover Reporter.

• If you're having trouble with the Minecraft world, you can get the link to the Virtual Store or the reporter's notes from your teacher. 

Teacher Notes:

• The Reporter Notes are available as a separate worksheet if students need them.  [Google] [Word] [PDF]

• All the products are also in the Thinglink Virtual Store if needed.

Step 6

Imagine you need to buy a black shirt, teal sweater, and purple slippers for school. 

Explain how you would spend your money on these clothes based on these results. Why would you make these choices?

Record your answers in a book and quill or on your worksheet.

Step 7

What if you could only spend money you earned from doing chores, and you earned $100 over the summer? Explain how that would affect your choice.

Step 8

Find famous author Sir Terry Pratchett in one of the shops, and read the quote from his book.

What do you think he was trying to say?

After a class discussion, record your final thoughts on your worksheet or in your book.

Teacher notes:

• The quote from "Men at Arms" is also on the worksheet.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

Step 10

Sign your book and export a copy for your teacher.

Add your book to the School Library.