Visualizing National Debt: A Google Sketchup Example

“Debt is like any other trap, easy enough to get into, but hard enough to get out of.”

– Henry Wheeler Shaw

As of this writing in November 2011, the United States national debt is quickly approaching the $15 trillion mark. $15 trillion?! What does $15 trillion even look like? I have seen briefcases of money in movies, but unfortunately, I have never had a briefcase full of money myself and I can honestly say that I have no idea what a million, a billion, or even a trillion dollars would look like all stacked up together. This week’s featured resources on the Gateway focus on debt and financial literacy. After learning more about national debts and the world’s financial crisis, I want to figure out an effective way to show students what kind of money is involved in these national debts.

One neat way to visualize this huge amount of money comes from pagetutor.com. The post titled “What does one TRILLION dollars look like?” uses drawings created in Google Sketchup to show a trillion dollars neatly stacked onto pallets next to the figure of a person for comparison. There are also sketches for smaller amount like a million and a billion dollars. When I look at this model and imagine that picture multiplied by 15 to show the actual current national debt…my mind is truly boggled. You can access the calculations used to create these 3-D models and you can see a model of the U.S. National debt as of March 2009.

Allowing your students to explore these Google Sketchup models will give them a better idea of the magnitude of the national debt in the U.S. $10,000 will fit in your pocket, $1 million will fit in a briefcase, $100 million will fit in a pickup truck, $1 billion would need a semi, and it would take 278 C-17s to carry $1 trillion in $100 bills (and that’s a huge plane!). If we wanted to carry the entire national debt in C-17s, we would need 4,170 planes. I feel like seeing these pictures gave me a much better idea of the magnitude of a trillion dollars and how huge the national debt truly is.

There are also lots of valuable lesson plans on the Gateway to help increase your students’ financial literacy. There are quite a few, so I recommend searching them for yourself. I had a hard time choosing three to include. Some to try now are the following game from the IMF and a set of lesson plans about debt from the UK. PBS Kids also has a nice collection of resources to try. Joann is featuring more every day on our Facebook and Twitter pages, so watch them all week for more ideas.

Looking at 3-D models of money got me wondering how this type of 3-D imaging could be used in all different types of classrooms. Google Sketchup is free to download and use. It’s a unique way for students and teachers to create models of landmarks and buildings around them and to reconstruct historical landmarks. Best of all, did I mention it’s free?

If you go to the Google Sketchup site and look in the education section, you will find lots of instructions and tutorials to help you get started. Have fun experimenting and drawing with Sketchup, and let your students do the same. Sketchup in the Classroom gives a good overview of how you can use this tool with your students. If you want to learn about more classroom applications, watch this video from a teacher who is using Sketchup in his classroom. This is the website for the digital history class featured in the previous video. You will be able to explore more about Sketchup and how you can use it in your classroom as you explore this site. I love seeing success stories like this!

Here’s a quick digest of some suggested ideas I found for using Sketchup in your classes. Geometry can make more sense with good 3-D models that students can create themselves. Your students can create models to share with the class. Students can also create models of historical buildings you are studying. An easy one to start with is an ancient Egyptian pyramid. After more practice, students may be able to create models of their own homes and geo-locate them in Google Earth. Very neat! In my district, every 3rd grade student is required to create a model of a California mission. Wouldn’t it be neat if some of the third-graders came in with accurate 3-D models of missions instead of another cardboard model you need to fit in your room?

I hope some of you will try Google Sketchup and let us know what you think. I am excited to try some drawing and modeling. I actually can’t stop going back and looking at the figure of the little tiny guy next to the huge stacks of pallets of $100 bills in a trillion dollars. I am imagining how little he would look next to that huge stack of 15 trillion dollars. Wow!