National Council for the Social Studies
Analyzing a Product or Political Advertisement
How do advertisements evoke specific thoughts and feelings? Class members find out through the exploration of the Internet, videos, television, magazines, radio, and posters. Learners investigate commercial advertisements, political...
Curated OER
Buying and Selling: Getting Cherries into a Pie
Kids keep score as they take on the roles of buyers and sellers in an agribusiness introduction. They play the game for five rounds, each round is made different by having a new economic element added, a discussion follows. Everything...
Curated OER
Fast Food Tomatoes
Here is a fantastic reading passage and discussion question to challenge your advanced learners. They read a passage describing arguments against the mass production of tomatoes for fast food resulting in poor treatment of workers. Then...
Curated OER
Cost Effective Buying
Students evaluate energy-related purchases. In this consumer awareness lesson plan, students visit an appliance store and rank the products' cost effectiveness by using a mathematical formula.
Curated OER
Products, the Environment and Consumer Choices
High schoolers review the factors of production and how they are used to make the products they buy. In groups, they participate in different scenerios in which they discover the amount of power they have to affect change buy purchasing...
Curated OER
Buying And Selling
In this buying and selling worksheet, students divide into two groups. One group of students role play the sellers and the other group the buyers. The sellers must think of a product to endorse and market and the buyers must decide on...
One Hen
Making Choices
When choosing what foods to eat, there are a lot of factors to consider. To help make the decision a little easier, young learners work in small groups developing short plays, stories, or advertisements that address the different issues...
Curated OER
How Do Our Attitudes Affect Waste?
Learners conduct a survey of society's typical purchasing practices to determine the influence of packaging on consumer choices and to determine if consumers consider waste disposal and recycling when making purchasing decisions.
Curated OER
Fit to Be Tied (In)
How do the films we watch affect our purchasing behavior? Considering the profiles of given consumer demographics, the class analyzes real advertisements and the effectiveness of their power on consumerism. THey create posters that...
Curated OER
The Roaring Twenties
Let's take a look back at America during the 1920s and 1930s. Information regarding the economics in the 1920s that led to some of the issues during the 1930s are covered using text and images. Learners will consider economic booms,...
Curated OER
Don't Believe the Hype
Are hand sanitizers good for you? What about the environment? Research the science behind commonly used cold medicines. The class reads an article, creates a product poster, and conducts independent research on product claims made by...
Curated OER
Health: Media and Body Image
Fifth graders examine the influence of advertisements on body image and purchasing. They discuss the psychology behind the ads and working in groups cut out words in magazine advertisements that could entice them to buy the product. ...
Curated OER
Conserving Fuel
In this conserving fuel worksheet, 7th graders solve and complete 4 different word problems that include measurement and total cost of products. First, the determine the gas station described that has the lowest price of gasoline. Then,...
Practical Money Skills
Shopping Wisely
Work on making good shopping choices with a fun economics project. Kids analyze the differences between brand names and generic products, bigger and smaller units for purchase, and different places they can shop for different items.
Curated OER
Buying and Selling Stocks
Students access prior knowledge of the stock market and how it works. In this buying and selling stocks lesson, students complete worksheets on stocks to understand how the stock market works. Students answer critical thinking questions...
Federal Trade Commission
A Smarter Consumer
How can understanding advertisements make people better consumers? With the fourth and final instructional activity from the Admongo series on advertising, scholars reflect on some of the questions they may ask about an ad before making...
Nemours KidsHealth
Food Safety: Grades 9-12
Food poisoning, salmonellosis, E. Coli, shigellosis, tapeworms—all these words can strike fear into eaters. Alas, the five-second rule is not necessarily true! Two activities teach teens safety rules for food purchasing, preparation,...
Curated OER
Spraying Strawberries
Young scholars examine the concept of dimishing marginal productivity. They role play the role of a farmer who has to decide how many times to spray his strawberry crop. They complete a chart and discuss the results.
Federal Reserve Bank
Investing in Yourself: An Economic Approach to Education Decisions
What is the difference between physical capital and human capital, and in which should you invest? While considering the concept of return on investment, take a look at the payoffs and consequences of investing in training and education.
Curated OER
Protecting the Guatemalan Rainforest through Certification
Eighth graders examine criteria that may be involved in forest certification. In this rainforest instructional activity students create a brochure to educate people on the benefits of buying certified forest products.
Curated OER
Bang for Your Buck
Students explore reasons for making a particular purchase and examine one strategy Wal-Mart stores used to keep prices low. They research and compare two companies that make similar products using different business philosophies.
Curated OER
Save the Earth: It's Everyone's Home!
Students demonstrate how to make earth-smart choices. For this environmental awareness lesson, students listen to a short lecture on environmentally friendly products. Students invent an environmentally friendly product and complete an...
Curated OER
Rain Forest Products
Students move from lab station to lab station observing samples of products from the Rain Forest. At each station they record the name of the product, write a description and sketch a diagram of the product.
Curated OER
Work
Students identify productive resources. In this economics instructional activity, students read the book Charlie Needs a Cloak and discuss productive resources the character used in the book. Students participate in a simulated factory...