Basic Economics

You are helping a young middle schooler understand the basics of economics through a series of hands-on examples while you babysit and fix him/her lunch.   The materials you have available to you are a bag of mini-mms (in individual packages), paper plates, glass plates, a four cup pan, 2 mugs, silverware, 100 poker chips, a television, six packages of Easy Mac, eight bottles of water, one can of pop, dish soap, a towel, a marker, and two apples, a head of lettuce, and three dozen homemade chocolate chip cookies.  If you want, s/he may invite a friend to lunch.  The water in the house is off and the microwave is broken (but the stove works).


Your story can take the form of a series of cartoons, a mind-map, drawings, or a creative story.  No more than three people per group, please.  You will present this understanding to the class on Wednesday.

How do you explain:

• economic good
• economic need
• economic want
• market demand
• basic nutrition
• malnutrition
• clean water
• hunger
• scarce resources
• economic resource 
• factor of production 
• GDP (gross domestic product), 
• non-renewable resource
• internal costs
• external benefits
• external costs 
• cost benefit analysis
• pollution
• recycling
• social good
• unemployment
• employment

Sites to use to find the answer

http://www.mcwdn.org/ECONOMICS/EconMain.html

http://www.strom.clemson.edu/becker/prtm320/economics_primer.html

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/economics-for-dummies-cheat-sheet-uk-edition.html

http://www.primarygames.com/socstudies/lemonade/start.htm