NCSS Theme 7: Production, Distribution, and Consumption

John Stokes
Capstone Portfolio

NCSS Overview

Economics Substrands and Standards

Substrand 1: Economic Reasoning Skills
Standard 1 People make informed economic choices by identifying
their goals, interpreting and applying data, considering the short- and
long-run costs and benefits of alternative choices, and revising their
goals based on their analysis.
Substrand 2: Personal Finance
Standard 2 Personal and financial goals can be achieved by applying
economic concepts and principles to personal financial planning,
budgeting, spending, saving, investing, borrowing and insuring
decisions.
Substrand 3: Fundamental Concepts
Standard 3 Because of scarcity, individuals, organizations and
governments must evaluate trade-offs, make choices and incur costs.
Standard 4 Economic systems differ in the ways that they address the
three basic economic issues of allocation, production and distribution
to meet societys broad economic goals.
Substrand 4: Microeconomic Concepts
Standard 5 Individuals, businesses and governments interact and
exchange goods, services and resources in different ways and for
different reasons; interactions between buyers and sellers in a market
determine the price and quantity exchanged of a good, service or
resource.
Standard 6 Profit provides an incentive for individuals and businesses;
different business organizations and market structures have an effect
on the profit, price and production of goods and services.
Standard 7 Resource markets and financial markets determine wages,
interest rates and commodity prices.
Standard 8 Market failures occur when markets fail to allocate
resources efficiently or meet other goals and this often leads to
government attempts to correct the problem.
Substrand 5: Macroeconomic Concepts
Standard 9 Economic performance (the performance of an economy
toward meeting its goals) can be measured, and is affected by, various
long-term factors.
Standard 10 The overall levels of output, employment and prices in an
economy fluctuate in the short run as a result of the spending and
production decisions of households, businesses, governments and
others.
 Standard 11 The overall performance of an economy can be influenced
by the fiscal policies of governments and the monetary policies of
central banks.
Standard 12 International trade, exchange rates, and international
institutions affect individuals, organizations and governments
throughout the world.
Resources:
https://www.mcee.umn.edu/ (Minnesota Council for Economic
Education)
http://www.econedlink.org/ (Resources and lesson plans for teaching
economics)
http://councilforeconed.org/ (Economic and financial literacy resources
from the Council for Economic Education)
https://www.stlouisfed.org/education (Lessons & resources from Federal
Reserve Bank of St. Louis)
https://www.federalreserveeducation.org/ (Lessons & resources from all
Federal Reserve Banks)
http://ecedweb.unomaha.edu/K-12/6-12concepts.cfm (Lessons from
Nebraska Council on Economic Education)*
https://educators.brainpop.com/bp-jr-topic/goods-and-services/
(Background information and Lesson Plans about Goods and Services)
http://www.fte.org/teacher-resources/lesson-plans/ (Lesson Plans by
Foundation of Teaching Economics)
http://econlib.org/index.html (Combination of resources for students
and teachers)
http://www.econoclass.com/ (Resources for economic teachers).
https://www.aeaweb.org/rfe/showCat.php?cat_id=91 (American
Economic Association)

Summary of the Theme

As described on the National Council for Social Studies website, the theme

has several ideas that are to be covered and are the main points of the

theme. The first of the main ideas is described as the wants that citizens

have that often exceed the resources available to them. This is discussing

how a country often doesnt the resources for all the wants of their citizens

want and have to trade and find ways to get the applicable resources to their

citizens. The second point is discussing how students will answer questions

such as factors that influence decision making, how globalization affects

resources and other ways countries come up with ways to get resources. The

third topic is that students will learn critical thinking skills through analyzing

how to distribute the scarcity of resources. This is a crucial skill that students

will learn how limited resources are and learn how politicians determine how

to deal with this issue on a daily basis. The fourth topic discusses where this

topic will be found in the Social Studies field, this discusses how this topic is

mainly covered in economics courses. This theme has many strengths and

weaknesses. A huge strength of this lesson is that is it a unique theme that

has very specific and important things that need to be covered as part of this

theme. Students in this theme will most likely never have learned about the

idea of production, distribution and consumption in any other classes and

thus make this theme one of the most vital. Another strength of this theme is

that it helps students develop critical thinking skills and how to weight pros

and cons of decisions. This theme also allows students to learn background

about how the economy and trade work in the international world. A

weakness of this theme is that one will spend a lot of time and probably

more than any other theme because of the limited background knowledge on

the topic that students will come in with. Another weakness of the theme is

that it is different from most of the other topics and issues discussed on the

Social Studies realm and can lead to confusion for both students and

teachers and students may have a hard time understanding the material.

Lesson Plan 1

Lesson Plan 1: Minimum Wage and Budgeting

Objective: Students are presented with basic knowledge about resources,
needs, wants, decision making, and budgeting. Following this brief
introduction, they are introduced to life as a minimum wage employee
through selected portions of Chapter 1in Barbara Ehrenreich's book, Nickel
and Dimed. Student are also using two current events articles related to
minimum wage laws and a living wage calculator. They prepare a budget for
a person living on minimum wage. The objectives are as follows: Page 4
Students will 1. Explain challenges people face when living on a minimum
wage. 2. Apply the PACED decision-making model. 3. Discuss current
minimum wage legislation. 4. Prepare a "minimum wage" budget.

Source:
https://www.mcee.umn.edu/sites/mcee.umn.edu/files/2014thriventse
condary2ndplace-jreinhardt.pdf

Minnesota K-12 Social Studies Standards 9.2.2.2.1

Personal and financial goals can be achieved by applying economic concepts

and principles to personal financial planning, budgeting, spending, saving,
investing, borrowing and insuring decisions.

Benchmark: Establish financial goals; make a financial plan considering

budgeting and asset building to meet those goals; and determine ways to
track the success of the plan.

Strengths and Weaknesses: This lesson has many strengths, to start this
lesson allows students to learn budgeting and how to set a basic budget.
This is a strength because many students will come in with very little or no
knowledge at all of how to set a budget and this lesson will teach students
that skill. Another strength of this lesson is it teaches students minimum
wage and how much your pay affects your spending. This is important
because many students in high school will begin working jobs and many will
be working for minimum wage, this lesson allows students to learn what their
money can get them. Another strength of this lesson is it has great
assessments and multiple different assessments to allow students multiple
ways to demonstrate their learning. A weakness of this lesson is that is a
multiple day lesson so depending on the time you have that could create a
major issue. Another weakness is that it involves research every year to see
what new laws are or if there have been any changes.

Lesson Plan 2

Lesson Plan 2: The Environment is an Economic Good

Objective: Markets incorporate incentives to reduce costs and Solving
environmental mysteries; productive resources are limited. Therefore, people
cannot have all the goods and services they want. As a result, they must
choose some things and give up others.

Source: http://www.fte.org/teacher-resources/lesson-
plans/eelessons/the-environment-is-an-economic-good

Minnesota K-12 Social Studies Standards 9.2.3.3.1

Because of scarcity, individuals, organizations and governments must

evaluate trade-offs, make choices and incur opportunity costs.

Benchmark: Identify the incentives and trade-offs related to a choice made

by an individual, household, organization or government; describe the
opportunity cost of a choice; and analyze the consequences of a choice (both
intended and unintended).

Strengths and Weaknesses: A strength of this lesson is that it brings a

real world situation and a current issue into the classroom for students to
learn about and to have a rational discussion about. Another strength is this
lesson shows students some of the decisions that people in power and the
government have to do when making financial decisions and shows students
that every decision they make has pros and cons include big issues in the
country. A weakness of this lesson and it doesnt incorporate modern
statistics or modern environmental issues into the lesson; instead it just
presents a general issue with a general worksheet on the issue.