JA Economics. Unit 1. Scarcity and Opportunity Cost. Lesson 1

Lesson Objective(s)

By the end of this lesson SWBAT:

Economics and Choices

Lesson Introduction

●If goods and services have improved most
people’s lives over time, why doesn’t everyone
have everything they need and want?

●When people have a long list of wants, but they
cannot get everything on their list, they must
choose which things are the most important.

●These choices and how you make them are the
basis for understanding scarcity and opportunity
cost.

●So, what do choices have to do with economics?

You Do - Activity

Read page from page 4 to page
5 of your textbook. Stop on
page 5 on the paragraph for
“Incentives”.

Open Ended

Define economics in your own words.

Multiple Choice

What does it mean to say that a resource is scarce?

• A society does not have enough money to purchase this resource.

• Nobody wants to buy this resource.

• There is an unlimited amount of the resource available.

• There is not enough of this resource to satisfy all the wants and needs of a society.

• The resource is no longer available.

Explanation Slide...

Scarcity refers to the conflict that arises from competition over a society's limited resources.

Open Ended

List three limited resources in the world

Discussion

How does scarcity force
people to make
decisions?

Multiple Choice

Which one of these definitions best describe 'Opportunity Costs'?

• The cost of making one decision over another.

• The cost for the opportunity to buy anything you want.

• The opportunity that will cost you loads of money.

Multiple Choice

Tom was shopping for a car. He has looked at a Ford, Honda, Toyota, and Dodge. After a lot of debate, he narrowed it down to either the Ford or the Honda. He selected the Ford, because he liked the interior a little better. What was his opportunity cost?

• Ford

• Honda

• Toyota

• Dodge

Discussion

You could be doing many other
things besides reading this text
and being in class. What is the
opportunity cost of spending
your time in class? What are your
incentives for reading this text
and participating in this activity?

Open Ended

Reflect and give an example of the opportunity cost of choice you have made.

You Do - Activity

Read page from page 5 to page
6 of your textbook. Stop on
page 6 on the paragraph for
“economic reasoning”.

Multiple Choice

An _________ is something that motivates someone.

• resource

• incentive

• decision

• economy

Multiple Choice

Punish people with money or a disadvantage for making certain choices and/or behaving a certain way.

• Explicit Cost

• Positive Incentives

• Implicit Cost

• Negative Incentives

Multiple Choice

Reward people with money or some type of advantage for making certain choices and/or behaving a certain way.

• Explicit Cost

• Positive Incentives

• Implicit Cost

• Negative Incentives

Discuss with the person next to you

Why do people use
incentives with one
another? Discuss at least
two incentives people
use.

Discussion

What are your
incentives for
reading this
text and
participating in
this activity?

Match

EXIT TICKET: Match the following

• an economic problem of humans having limited resources while

  also having unlimited needs and wants

• a social science

  that studies how people, acting individually and in groups, decide to use

  scarce resources to satisfy their wants.

• Behind each choice, there is an alternative choice that could have

  been made. The value of that second-best option.

• rewards or penalties that influence an individual to make or avoid a specific choice.

Scarcity

Economics

Opportunity Cost

Incentives

• Scarcity

• Economics

• Opportunity Cost

• Incentives