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Car Loan Project Each student will buy (hypothetically) a car that will need to be financed. The student will need to look at different options and decide which wil... Grade: 9-12    Published: 04/07/2003

Scarcity, Choice & Decisions The interrelated concepts of scarcity, choice, and costs form a basic economic trilogy. Since most families have financial resources far more limited ... Grade: 6-8 9-12    Published: 05/01/2002

Marketplace: School Competition In June 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that Cleveland's system of giving students vouchers to attend private or religious schools did not violate the c... Grade: 9-12    Published: 07/15/2008

The South's Decision to Secede: A Violation of Self Interest? Your students will consider the following questions: In deciding to secede from the Union in 1861, did the South violate its own self-interest and th... Grade: 6-8 9-12    Published: 04/08/2005

Q T Pi Fashions - Learning About Credit Card Use Credit cards are convenient, user friendly, and at times dangerous. In this lesson students learn the joys and dangers of using credit as they help... Grade: 6-8 9-12    Published: 11/13/2002

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Capstone: Exemplary Lessons for High School Economics - Teacher's Guide Grade: 9-12   Published: 2003 6 of the 45 lessons are related to this lesson. The top 5 are listed below. Unit 5: Lesson 24 - Government and the Environment Students examine and discuss visuals to identify an economic mystery regarding the failure of the Endangered Species Act. They are introduced to the concepts of market failure and government failure.... Unit 1: Lesson 1 - Economic Reasoning: Why Are We A Nation of Couch Potatoes? Students examine visuals to identify an economic mystery regarding exercise and diet. They use the Guide to Economic Reasoning to analyze the costs and benefits of decisions about diet and exercise. ... Unit 4: Lesson 21 - Productivity, Diminishing Marginal Returns, and the Demand for Labor Students produce greeting cards with a fixed number of scissors and markers, and a variable number of workers. They discuss factors affecting workers productivity and the law of diminishing marginal ... Unit 1: Lesson 4 - To Choose or Not to Choose? That Is Not the Question Students make a decision after identifying the alternatives and their anticipated costs and benefits. Unit 3: Lesson 17 - Creating and Using a Budget This lesson focuses on using budgeting to maximize consumer satisfaction. It describes a flexible view of budgets, linking them to markets and market information, and demonstrates how and why budgets...

Your Credit Counts Challenge: Trainer's Guide Grade: 7-adult   Published: 2004 6 of the 6 lessons are related to this lesson. The top 5 are listed below. Section 4: A Roof Over Your Head Participants will understand the benefits and drawbacks of homeownership. Participants will understand the process of buying a home, from before house-hunting to closing and occupancy. Participants ... Section 6: The Basics of a Market Economy Participants will identify the characteristics of people who build wealth. Participants will recognize the primary features of a market economy including voluntary exchange, private ownership, a pric... Section 5: Strategies for Wealth Building Participants will understand the concept of net wealth and how the decisions they make can cause their own net wealth to increase or decrease. Participants will explain why an early start in saving a... Section 3: Managing Credit Participants will identify the advantages and disadvantages of using credit. Participants will recognize what credit is, what it costs, and the basic steps involved in obtaining credit. Participants... Section 2: Financial Institutions Participants identify the advantages and disadvantages of using financial services from alternative financial institutions and services from mainstream banks. Participants identify the services provi...

Mathematics & Economics: Connections for Life - 9-12 Grade: 9-12   Published: 2001 9 of the 15 lessons are related to this lesson. The top 5 are listed below. Lesson 12: Autonomics This lesson develops the idea of opportunity cost by examining the costs of owning and operating an automobile. Opportunity cost is the value of the next best alternative when a choice is made. Lesson 10: Powerball Economics In games of chance, such as a lottery, economists refer to a fair game as one in which the expected return from the game equals the amount that one must pay to play the game. If a lottery costs one do... Lesson 7: The Mathematics of Nonlinear Economic Shapes: The Production Possibilities Curve Because the resources (such as raw materials, minerals, energy, labor, equipment, machinery, etc.) that are used to produce goods and services are limited in their availability, we cannot have all tha... Lesson 8: The Mathematics of Nonlinear Economic Shapes: The Cubic Cost Function Careful control of total cost is essential for a firm if it wishes to maximize profits. While many firm managers prefer to concentrate on the more glamorous activity of marketing and selling the compa... Lesson 11: Cash or Annuity? Jackpot winners of state lotteries may have the choice of receiving their winnings in the form of cash or an annuity. An annuity is a financial instrument that provides income at regular intervals ove...

Choices & Changes: In Life, School, and Work - Grades 9-10 - Teacher's Resource Manual Grade: 9-10   Published: 2002 8 of the 15 lessons are related to this lesson. The top 5 are listed below. Unit 1: Lesson 1 - Making Choices Students are introduced to the nature of choice making by confronting thorny problems individually and in groups. Unit 1: Lesson 2 - Choosing Among Alternatives Benefits and costs are defined and students use benefit/cost analysis to arrive at a group decision. Unit 1: Lesson 3 - Choices: Benefits and Costs In a family-type role-playing, students decided what to do with a $500 windfall. Unit 2: Lesson 9 - What Employers Want In a job interview role-playing activity, students learn about criteria employers use in deciding to hire employees. Unit 3: Lesson 13 - My Human Capital: A Job Application Following a study of two realistic dilemmas, students complete a resume and assess their own qualifications for actual jobs.

Financial Fitness for Life: Pocket Power - Grades K-2 - Teacher Guide Grade: K-2   Published: 2001 7 of the 16 lessons are related to this lesson. The top 5 are listed below. Theme 2: Lesson 5 - Why We Save Students create a banner depicting their own choices when a decision is made and an opportunity cost is incurred. Then the class learns about saving to satisfy a want. Finally students make and deco... Theme 2: Lesson 6 - How We Save The class hears a story about Nicholas's family during a time of unexpected financial emergency. Students experience scarcity as they try to fit everything they want into a pocket. They learn about ... Theme 2: Lesson 7 - Saving Makes Us Wait Students experience setting a goal and saving to achieve that goal. The class discusses the costs and benefits of saving by completing a decision grid. Using a magic mirror they gaze into the future... Theme 3: Lesson 8 - We Are Consumers Students discover that they are consumers. As they fill their pockets with pictures of wants, students learn that consumers want both goods and services. As they try to help Nicholas choose a pet, a... Theme 4: Lesson 13 - We Are Lenders This lesson focuses on the relationship between borrowers and lenders from the perspective of the lender. The students explore the costs and benefits of making a lending decision using the Pocket Dec...

Financial Fitness for Life: Bringing Home the Gold - Grades 9-12 - Teacher Guide Grade: 9-12   Published: 2001 8 of the 22 lessons are related to this lesson. The top 5 are listed below. Theme 1: Lesson 3 - Decision Making In this lesson, students learn that we must make decisions because resources are limited and wants are unlimited. Students see that sound decision making involves identifying criteria and using those... Theme 1: Lesson 2 - The Economic Way of Thinking Lesson 2 introduces students to the economic reasoning process or the "economic way of thinking." Students reason through two situations, using The Handy Dandy Guide, a primer on economic reasoning. Theme 3: Lesson 8 - What's the Cost of Spending and Saving? This lesson examines the benefit and opportunity cost of spending and saving. Students use a chart to learn how compound interest makes savings grow. Compounding provides an incentive to save or inv... Theme 4: Lesson 17 - Shopping for an Auto Loan Consumers must shop for credit just as they do for a car or a computer. In this lesson, students learn the skills they need to shop for credit by filling out a credit comparison chart for a hypotheti... Theme 4: Lesson 12 - Making Credit Choices Individuals face many credit choices. Students in this lesson act as financial advisors providing advice on when it may or may not be appropriate to use different forms of credit.

Economics in Action: 14 Greatest Hits for Teaching High School Economics Grade: 9-12   Published: 2003 4 of the 14 lessons are related to this lesson. They are listed below. Lesson 2 - Economic Decision Making Students brainstorm ways to allocate a scarce good within the classroom. Then they work with a decision-making model that helps them make a decision about this allocation by showing them how to evalu... Lesson 3 - Using Economic Reasoning To Solve Mysteries Students ponder an economic mystery: Why do professional athletes, many of whom never finish college, earn far higher salaries than people who perform worthy services such as teachers and firefighter... Lesson 6 - The Economic Way of Thinking: Three Activities to Demonstrate Marginal Analysis This lesson consists of three activities that demonstrate different applications of marginal analysis. You may use the activities separately or do them together in one class period. In the first activ... Lesson 9 - The Invention Convention Working in small groups, the students simulate firms creating and producing new products. Using budget guidelines, they must decide which inputs they will purchase. They calculate their costs of produ...

Civics and Government: Focus on Economics Grade: 9-12   Published: 1996 3 of the 16 lessons are related to this lesson. They are listed below. Unit 3: Lesson 9 - How Are Economic Solutions to Pollution Different from Political Solutions? After students have developed an understanding of externalities, they examine a case study of pollution in Los Angeles and determine a variety of solutions for this problem. The costs and benefits of... Unit 4: Lesson 15 - Why Would Governments Limit International Trade? In preparation for the lesson, students identify imported products which they and their families buy. On the first day of the lesson, the class discusses the benefits of specialization and trade amon... Unit 4: Lesson 16 - How Can Economic Sanctions Be Part of U.S. Foreign Policy? Students examine the data on U.S. imports, exports, and foreign aid, and explore how economic sanctions can be used to attain overall U.S. foreign policy goals. In small groups they do research to de...

Focus: High School Economics Grade: 9-12   Published: 2001 3 of the 21 lessons are related to this lesson. They are listed below. Lesson 1: Choice, Opportunity Costs, and Decisions Scarcity, choice, and cost are sometimes referred to as a basic trilogy of economics, because of the strong interrelationships between these fundamental concepts. Resources are limited, compared to w... Lesson 15: Until the Last Unit Equals Marginalism is an important concept in both personal and social decision-making. Choices are rarely all-or-nothing propositions, but instead usually deal with incremental (marginal) changes -- giving... Lesson 2: Broad Social Goals of an Economic System All economic systems strive to achieve a set of broad social goals, including economic efficiency, equity, freedom, growth, security, and stability. How these goals are prioritized, and how successfu...

Choices & Changes: In Life, School, and Work - Grades 7-8 - Teacher's Resource Manual Grade: 7-8   Published: 2002 1 of the 15 lessons are related to this lesson. It is listed below. Unit 2: Lesson 6 - Choices Have Benefits and Costs In a simulation, "What's in the Box?" students examine the benefits and costs of alternative choices.

Choices & Changes: In Life, School, & Work - Grades 2-4 - Teacher's Resource Manual Grade: 2-4   Published: 2001 1 of the 18 lessons are related to this lesson. It is listed below. Unit 1: Lesson 5 - Opportunity Cost In this lesson students will: Recognize the importance of identifying the opportunity cost of a potential choice; Use the concept of opportunity cost before making decisions; Avoid using the word "fre...

Financial Fitness for Life: Steps to Financial Fitness - Grades 3-5 - Teacher Guide Grade: 3-5   Published: 2001 1 of the 16 lessons are related to this lesson. It is listed below. Theme 2: Lesson 4 - The Grasshopper and the Ant In this lesson, children use an adaptation of Aesop's fable, "The Grasshopper and the Ant," to learn about the trade-off between satisfying wants today and planning for the future. Children use the f...