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Economics from Here to There
Introduction
 Publications of the National Council on
Economic Education (NCEE) have been
well-received by educators from a wide
range of countries. The active-learning
approach, emphasized by the NCEE network
of state councils and centers for economic education, holds strong appeal
for many educators.
Educators from the United States and those
from eastern and central Europe, central
Asia, and Asia recognize the importance of
active-learning strategies in economic education.
Educational materials created for
schools in the United States, however, are
not always appropriate for use in other
countries because of language, economic,
and cultural differences. Although economic
educators in other countries have written
textbooks, a need for relevant active-learning
lesson plans was recognized.
To address this need, NCEE developed
Connecting the Pieces: Building a Better
Economics Lesson, a publication to help
teachers write better lessons. The publication
shows potential writers how to identify
the economics appropriate for K-12 students
and develop lessons using active-learning
instructional models that include integration
of economics into other subject
matter, higher-order thinking skills, and
assessments. A chapter is also devoted to the
importance of conducting pilot tests and
using the data for lesson revision.
Grants from the U.S. Department of
Education, for the Cooperative Education
Exchange Program provided the funding for
Connecting the Pieces, as well as annual
Training of Writers programs. As the faculty
of this innovative program, we have had the
privilege of working with many creative
teachers from the United States and countries
of the former Soviet Union and eastern
and central Europe, and more recently from
central Asia and Asia who aspired to
become better writers of economics lessons.
This publication includes six lesson plans
developed by participants in the international
Training of Writers program conducted
by the National Council on Economic
Education through the Department of
Education grants. This publication is
unique among the publications written by
participants as a result of the Training of
Writers program. In this publication, each of
the lessons was written by international
groups during the training seminars. Six lessons
have been developed for elementary,
middle and high-school classrooms. The lessons
cover a variety of economic concepts
and complement other curricular areas, such
as language arts, world history, art and science.
We hope that you and your fellow teachers
will find these lesson plans useful and rewarding.
Foreword
It is a great pleasure to introduce Economics from Here to There. This
publication contains six lessons for K-12 classrooms. It is unique because
each lesson was developed by teams of writers from Belarus, Bulgaria, Indonesia,
Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Uzbekistan and the United States.
The authors of these lessons were participants in the Training of Writers program, developed and conducted by the National Council on Economic Education
as part of the Cooperative Education Exchange Program. Since 1996 the Training
of Writers program has helped teachers from both the United States and emerging
market economies learn how to write instructional materials, through intensive
writing exercises, expert guidance, feedback from peers, and follow-up work
by e-mail.
The development of the publication was made possible through a grant to
NCEE from the United States Department of Education, Office of Safe and Drug-Free
Schools under PR Grant # Q304B050002. NCEE extends its appreciation to the
Department of Education and Ms. Rita Foy-Moss for her support as Program
Officer. The program is carried out in coordination with the U.S. Department
of State.
NCEE is grateful that the United States Congress had the foresight to recognize
the need for economic education in emerging market economies and the vision
to see how an international education exchange program such as the CEEP in
economics and civics could benefit U.S. students and teachers.
Special thanks are extended to the editors – Mary Suiter, Economic
Education Manager, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and Bonnie Meszaros,
Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship, University of Delaware – for
conceptualizing this publication and for their perseverance and dedication
in bringing it to press; and to Patricia Elder, Barbara DeVita, and Mary
Blanusa, NCEE, for their continuing support of the Training of Writers program
and this publication.
Robert F. Duvall
President and Chief Executive Officer
Acknowledgements
Writers
Salimuv Abduvakhab
(Uzbekistan) |
Sam Agami
(Virginia) |
Elena Chislari
(Moldova) |
Evegeny Gorbunov
(Russia) |
Kathy Heyse
(Indiana) |
Andrew Hill
(Pennsylvania) |
Christy Johnson
(Washington) |
Zuzana Krakova
(Slovakia) |
Penny Kugler
(Missouri) |
Rumyana Lalova
(Bulgaria) |
Steven Lauridsen
(Illinois) |
Svetlana Mikheeva
(Russia) |
Terri Modlich
(Colorado) |
Cheryl Morrow
(Alabama) |
Jibin Park
(California) |
Tom Roby
(Virginia) |
Eka Sepashuili
(Georgia) |
Katherine Van Horn
(Illinois) |
Zinaida Visotskaya
(Belarus) |
Agung Waspodo
(Indonesia) |
Vickie Weiss
(Michigan) |
Anna Zachorowska-Mazurkiewicz
(Poland) |
Lile Zakauskiene
(Lithuania) |
Wanda Zubrzycka
(Poland) |
Editors
Bonnie T. Meszaros
University of Delaware |
Mary C. Suiter
Economic Education Manager
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis |
Copy Editor
Lawrence State
Designer
Susan K. Todd
The National Council on Economic Education gratefully acknowledges the
funding for this publication by the United States Department of Education,
Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools under PR Grant # Q304B050002. Any opinions,
findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are
those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S.
Department of Education.
Copyright © 2006, National Council on Economic Education,
1140 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10036. All rights reserved.
The
activities and worksheets may be duplicated for classroom use, the number
not to exceed the number of students in each class. Notice of copyright must
appear on all pages. With the exception of the activities and worksheets,
no part of this book my be reproduced in any form or by any means without
permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in the United States of
America.
ISBN 1-56183-636-2
Downloads
The lesson plans from Economics from Here to There are available for download
below in PDF format.
- Lesson 1 Which One Do I Want More?
The students listen to a short story in which Anna must make a choice
and learn about opportunity cost. Given a selection of paper bags containing
small items, the students must select one bag and decide if they wish to
keep the bag or exchange it for another. Once the students make their decision,
they state their choice and identify their opportunity cost.
Lesson 1 (pdf: 312kb)
- Lesson 2 The Candy Kids - Supply Of And Demand For Candy
The students participate in and discuss two games aimed at giving them
an understanding that consumers and producers respond to incentives and
behave according to the Law of Demand (as illustrated by the first game)
and the Law of Supply (as illustrated by the second game).
Lesson 2 (pdf: 104kb)
- Lesson 3 The Classy Card Company
The students form the Classy Card Company to produce greeting cards.
The company has orders for birthday cards from two different businesses.
Because of scarcity, the Classy Card Company cannot produce enough cards
to fill both orders. The workers at the Classy Card Company must make a
decision about how to allocate the cards they produce.
Lesson 3 (pdf: 108kb)
- Lesson 4 Rush Hour
Incentives that people face influence their everyday decisions. Using
a road-map game board, the students simulate driving to work and choose
driving routes based on incentives. The students analyze how changes in
incentives cause changes in behavior. They also learn the difference between
monetary and non-monetary incentives.
Lesson 4 (pdf: 348kb)
- Lesson 5 Who Gets To See The Game?
Scarcity forces people to allocate goods and services in a variety of
ways. In this lesson, the students use cost/benefit analysis to analyze
various methods of allocation, first for tickets to a football game and
then for organ transplants.
Lesson 5 (pdf: 124kb)
- Lesson 6 Don’t Be Discouraged!
The students develop a classification chart identifying which workers
are employed and unemployed, determining which workers are counted as unemployed
and classifying what type of unemployment each worker is experiencing.
The students calculate the unemployment rate in a nation and learn why
this is considered an imperfect measure of unemployment.
Lesson 6 (pdf: 144kb)
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