Third Grade Overview s3

Tenth Grade Economics EC1001 Fundamentals of Economics Tenth Grade: Economics Unit 1: Fundamentals of Economics

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Overarching Question:

How does scarcity impact the decisions individuals, organizations, and societies must make?

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United States History and Fundamentals of Economics The Workings of a Market Geography System

Questions To Focus Assessment and Instruction: Types of Thinking

1. How does scarcity impact the decisions individuals and Cause and Effect societies must make? Problem Solving Identifying Perspectives 2. What roles do individuals and businesses play in an economic Compare and Contrast system? 3. How do individuals evaluate their economic system?

Michigan Citizenship Collaborative Curriculum Page 1 of 6 www.micitizenshipcurriculum.org August 28, 2009 Tenth Grade Economics EC1001 Fundamentals of Economics

Unit Abstract:

This introductory unit presents students with the fundamental economic problem of scarcity and how people and societies respond. Building upon students’ prior knowledge and experiences with economics, students begin by exploring the scope and methodology of economics as a social studies discipline. Through case studies and scenarios, students apply cost/benefit analyses to identify the opportunity costs involved in making a decision and apply marginal analysis to personal decision making. In doing so, students consider how economic decisions are made “at the margins”. Next, students advance to a more sophisticated view of the circular flow model assessing how limited resources are allocated and move in the production and consumption of goods and services in a market economy. Using a variety of scenarios, students evaluate factors that might serve to increase and decrease the speed of the circular flow. Students then concentrate on one aspect of the circular flow – businesses. They explore the advantages and disadvantages of different business structures and examine some common characteristics of several successful entrepreneurs. Next, students take a macroeconomic perspective and investigate several ways in which societies have addressed the problem of scarcity. The unit concludes with students applying the production possibilities model to consider ways in which an economy can grow beyond its current level of production.

Focus Questions 1. How does scarcity impact the decisions individuals and societies must make? 2. What roles do individuals and businesses play in an economic system? 3. How do individuals evaluate their economic system?

Content Expectations E1.1.1: Scarcity, Choice, Opportunity Costs, and Comparative Advantage – Using examples, explain how scarcity, choice, opportunity costs affect decisions that households, businesses, and governments make in the market place and explain how comparative advantage creates gains from trade.1

E1.1.2: Entrepreneurship – Identify the risks, returns and other characteristics of entrepreneurship that bear on its attractiveness as a career.

E1.2.1: Business Structures – Compare and contrast the functions and constraints facing economic institutions including small and large businesses, labor unions, banks, and households.2

E1.2.2: Price in the Market – Analyze how prices send signals and provide incentives to buyers and sellers in a competitive market.

E1.2.3: Investment, Productivity and Growth – Analyze the role investments in physical (e.g., 1 The comparative advantage portion of this expectation is not addressed in this unit but will be addressed later in the course in the unit entitled “The Global Economy”. 2 The banking portion of this expectation will be addressed in a subsequent unit “Role of the Government in the Domestic Economy.”

technology) and human capital (e.g., education) play in increasing productivity and how these influence the market.3

E1.4.1: Public Policy and the Market – Analyze the impact of a change in public policy (such as an increase in the minimum wage, a new tax policy, or a change in interest rates) on consumers, producers, workers, savers, and investors.

E3.1.1: Major Economic Systems – Give examples of and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of major economic systems (command, market and mixed), including their philosophical and historical foundations (e.g., Marx and the Communist Manifesto, Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations).

E3.1.5: Comparing Economic Systems – Using the three basic economic questions (e.g., what to produce, how to produce, and for whom to produce), compare and contrast a socialist (command) economy (such as North Korea or Cuba) with the Capitalist as a mixed, free market system of the United States.

E4.1.1: Scarcity and Opportunity Costs – Apply concepts of scarcity an opportunity costs to personal financial decision making.

E4.1.5: Personal Decisions – Use a decision-making model (e.g., stating a problem, listing alternatives, establishing criteria, weighing options, making the decision, and evaluating the result) to evaluate the different aspects of personal finance including careers, savings and investing tools, and different forms of income generation.

Key Concepts business structures capital goods choice circular flow model consumer goods economic systems economic efficiency entrepreneurship marginal analysis opportunity cost Production Possibilities Frontier / Curve resources scarcity

Duration

3 This expectation could be touched upon in connection with entrepreneurship (education to make oneself more successful or earn a greater salary or wage). Additionally, one of the advantages to corporations is the ability to raise capital to invest in technology and the role of financial institutions and labor unions also serve to improve productivity.

2 weeks

Lesson Sequence Lesson 1: What is Economics? Lesson 2: The Issue of Scarcity Lesson 3: Choice and Opportunity Cost Lesson 4: Circular Flow Lesson 5: Business Structures Lesson 6: Societal Responses to Scarcity Lesson 7: Production Possibilities and Growth

Assessment Selected Response Items

Constructed Response Items

Performance Assessments

Economic Continuum Draw a horizontal line. Label the left side of the line “Pure Market Economy” and the right side, “Pure Centrally Planned E3.1.1; E3.1.5 Economy.” Place each of the following nations on your line at a place that you think accurately represents the current state of its economy: United States, China, North Korea, Sweden, Great Britain, Russia, Mexico, Cuba, Iran, South Africa, and Kenya.

Resources Equipment/Manipulative Bead containers (four) Beads, different colors of red, green, blue and yellow to fill each bowl Chart paper Computers with Internet Access Document Camera, Overhead Projector, or Computer Projector Highlighters Lined paper Markers Play money, in denominations of $1, $5, $10, and $20 (see Supplemental Materials (Unit 1)) Rules, about 15 Scissors, about 15 pairs Student Notebook or Journal for the Perspectives in Scarcity Notebook Unlined drawing or construction paper

Student Resource Adams, Barbara Johnston. Go-around Dollar. New York: Four Winds, Maxwell Macmillan Canada, Maxwell Macmillan International, 1992.

Circular Flow Diagram. 20 August 2009 ..

Circular Flow of Income. Fundamentals of Business. 20 August 2009. .

Daily Lecture Notes for Glencoe "Economics Principles & Practices.” New York: Glencoe McGraw- Hill, 2004.

“Daredevil Urges Payton to Head South for Liver Transplant.” CNN/SI - NFL Football. Knievel has advice for Walter Payton. 9 Feb. 1999. 20 August 2009 ..

DeLong, J. Bradford. “The Circular Flow.” Flows of Incomes, Expenditures, Factors of Production, and Goods and Services. University of California at Berkeley. 20 August 2009. .

A Hunger for Economic Knowledge. Enrichment Activities for Glencoe "Economics Principles & Practices" New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2004.

Marginal Analysis. School of Economic Sciences. 20 August 2009. .

“Payton’s Liver Disease Progressing Faster than Expected.” CNN/SI - NFL Football - Payton's disease progressing faster than expected. 13 Feb. 1999. 20 August 2009. .

“Rationing Transplants: An Ethical Problem." EconEdLink. 20 August 2009. .

Ripp, Ken. Bead Game Simulation. Foundation for Teaching Economics. Davis, CA. 2001. http://www.fte.org/teachers/lessons/lessons.htm .

Serchuk, David. “Beating the Opportunity Cost Blues.” Forbes.com. 9 July 2009. 22 August 2009. .

Teacher Resource Junior Achievement Text and Study Guide

Contemporary Economics, McConnell & Brue, p. 33-34, Ch. 2

Money Instructor , Play Money. 22 August 2009. < http://www.moneyinstructor.com/play.asp>

Schenk, Robert E. The Circular Flow. 22 August 2009. .

Resources for Further Professional Knowledge (Summer Reading List for Teachers) Ariely, Dan. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. New York: HarperCollins, 2009.

Freedman, Thomas L. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005.

Levitt, Steven D. and Stephen L. Dubner. Freakanomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. New York: HarperCollins, 2005

Miller, Roger LeRoy, Daniel K. Benjamin, and Douglass C. North. Economics of Public Issues, The (15th Edition). New York: Addison Wesley, 2007.

Michigan Citizenship Collaborative Curriculum Page 6 of 6 www.micitizenshipcurriculum.org August 28, 2009