Commodity Chain

*Reminder: Write your final project in a blank Word document. Turn in by uploading Word document or PDF to the Final Project Submission Folder in the Week 5 Module. View rubric on Rubrics page or in submission folder and consider viewing the SafeAssign report to check for plagiarism.

Do NOT copy anything from this description and insert in your document; this interferes with the plagiarism checker SafeAssign.

For the final project, you will write about and visualize a commodity chain for the manufactured product that you investigated for Homework Assignment 2. It consists of 2 parts:

Part 1) An essay describing the commodity chain of your manufactured item

Part 2) A Google Map with 10 place-markers corresponding to sites related to your commodity chain

PART 1 DIRECTIONS

Your essay should build off of Homework Assignment 2 (review my feedback if you have not already). Write an essay with an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion in which you give an overview of the commodity chain of your product. You need to write about raw material extraction/production, manufacturing/assembly, and waste, but you may also include other dimensions of the commodity chain including design, marketing, transportation, and consumption as relevant to your particular research.

Do not just list off information about these various dimensions; dig deeper in your research by looking to news articles and reports and include in your essay information about and analysis of the human dimensions of your commodity chain at various geographic sites and across various aspects. For example, find an article that profiles a key factory related to your product and working conditions there or investigate an agricultural site (specific to your product if you can find it but if not, it can be a generic timber farm for instance) connected to a raw material of your product and discuss who labors to get that raw material, under what kinds of working conditions, etc.

For inspiration

Commodity chain of Nike shoes

Commodity chain of chocolate

*Note: these are examples completed outside of this class; view for inspiration only; follow the directions in THIS description and do not mimic other work.

PART 2 DIRECTIONS

Create a Google Map with 10 place-markers by following this Google Maps Tutorial _click here_

The 10 place-markers must represent a balanced snapshot of the commodity chain across various dimensions including: production having to do with raw materials, design, manufacturing, marketing, transportation, consumption, and/or waste. Place-markers should NOT all pertain to one of these categories.

You MUST include at least 2 place-markers that relate to a site of raw material extraction, at least 2 that relate to manufacturing, at least 2 that relate to a site of waste for all or part of your product.

Place-markers should be as geographically specific as possible, pinned to particular cities or regions within countries, not whole countries whenever possible. There may be some that pertain to entire countries.

The title of each place-marker should include the geographic location and the aspect of the commodity chain (i.e. manufacturing plant, design studio, waste site, copper extraction site).

Examples: Jambi, Indonesia–rubber production

Silicon Valley, CA, USA—design site

*Note: It is your responsibility to reach out to me if you have trouble completing this task. I am more than willing to have a one-on-one session to walk you through it and troubleshoot as needed.

*Note: By now you should have already told me if you do not already have a Google account you are willing to use for this project or if you are not willing to create one to use for this project; if you have not already told me this, you must do so IMMEDIATELY so I can provide you an alte