Lesson sheet · Module 2
Currencies and backing
The aim of the lesson
Know which currency you live in, which one you earn in and which one you owe in. When the three do not match, you carry exchange rate risk — even if you cannot see it.
- 👧 Child: "Does this money work in the other country?"
- 🧑 Teenager: before you buy something online in a foreign currency — how much is it really in euros, with the conversion fee?
- 🧔 Adult: is your salary in one currency and your loan in another? This is the oldest trap of crises — in Argentina, in Iceland, and with the Swiss franc loans in Hungary, Poland and Croatia ✔ (Bruegel: https://www.bruegel.org/blog-post/foreign-loan-hangovers-and-macro-prudential-measures-central-eastern-europe).
Your step in Pecuvo: every space in the portfolio has its own currency (new ones in euros; historical data from earlier years in leva). Check: which currency are your accounts in, and which one are your debts in?
The topic (chapters of the module)
- Chapter 1 · What a currency is
- Chapter 2 · The anchors: gold, silver and both together
- Chapter 3 · The price of the gold anchor
- Chapter 4 · Floating or pegged
- Chapter 5 · Whose money the world holds
- Chapter 6 · The currency board: an anchor without gold
- Chapter 7 · The laboratory: Bulgaria 1996–97
- Chapter 8 · From the lev to the euro: 1997 → 2026
For the youngest · ages 6–7
🐣 The youngest: In many European countries money is called the euro. In other countries money has other names. The name of a country's money is called its currency. Every country looks after its money so that it does not lose its strength. That is why people trust it and accept it.
Play together (5 minutes): Look together at the coins from 1 cent to €2. Look for the different pictures on their backs. Then invent money for your own imaginary country: a name, a colour and a picture.
A question for the evening: "What will the money in your invented country be called, and what will be on it?"
A game from the catalogue: RZ-03 "The dwarf's scales" — https://pecuvo.eu/igri/katalog/#rz-03 (in Bulgarian)
Questions for the class — 3 per level
- 👧 1. What is a currency? 2. What does a currency board keep in the vault? 3. From what date does Bulgaria pay in euros?
- 🧑 1. What is Gresham's law? 2. Which three things can a country not have at the same time? 3. What did the currency board stop in 1997?
- 🧔 1. What is the price of a currency board? 2. Why must a change in the dollar's share of reserves be read carefully? 3. What does Bulgaria gain and what does it lose with the euro compared with the currency board?
A 45-minute plan
- 5 min
- The question for the evening or one from “Check yourself” — what do the pupils think? No right or wrong answers.
- 15 min
- One or two chapters of the module at the level of the class (the “child · teenager · adult” buttons on the page).
- 10 min
- The game or the calculator for the topic — in pairs or on the board.
- 10 min
- The questions for the class. If you like, the open test — everyone writes down only their code.
- 5 min
- The iron principle in the pupils' own words and one small step for home.
Tools for the lesson
- The whole module on the website pecuvo.eu/en/modules/currencies-and-backing/
- Calculator: Bulgarian lev and euro pecuvo.eu/en/calculators/lev-to-euro/
- The open test (9 questions) — pupils write down only their code (e.g. K4B11), no names; the class distribution is shown on the same page pecuvo.eu/en/test/
- The Glossary — terms explained simply pecuvo.eu/en/glossary/