This experimental unit on modernization will involve secondary students in researching and developing a 50-nation data bank from which they are asked to make cross-cultural comparisons and analyses. Students infer some of the consequences of economic development on social and political life in a modernizing society, apply the concept of modernization to countries undergoing the modernizing process, and analyze the relationships between various factors in the modernizing process. There are six activities. In activity one students infer from a series of pictures and quotations some of the dimensions of the term "modern." Activity two contains a step-by-step quide for the construction of a 50-nation data bank. Students work with punch cards and data sheets to organize and manipulate a variety of statistical data. Students learn to use the data bank in activity three by completing exercise questions. In activity four students develop lists of criteria from which to assess the degree of modernization of 20 nations in the data bank. In activity five students generate their own hypotheses about the modernization process and the nations in the data bank and test their hypotheses by verification with the data. The unit ends with activity six in which students are shown a series of 46 slides and are asked to rate them on a scale from least modern to most modern. (Author/RM)