Engaging Economics Throughout Education

Children get introduced to the concept of money at a very early age. We give them toy cash registers and piggy banks, and allow them to play games like Monopoly. Children love money, but do not understand its limitations. They do not grasp why mommy can't buy them everything in the store or how money earned compares to money spent. This concept of monetary value is usually something that children begin to grasp in school through such topics as career education, geography, history, community studies, and consumer education.

How is Economic Education integrated throughout the Social Studies Curriculum through these topics? 

Career Education: Explores career choices by comparing the cost of a degree or certification, school time, salary, and benefits to other careers. For instant, how much money and time does it take to become a doctor? Does the salary and benefits outweigh the time, energy, and money put into creating this career for oneself? 

Geography: Promotes an understanding of how geography plays a major role in economics by providing examples of the benefits and limitations of different locations around the world. This focuses on aspects like natural resources, biodiversity, natural disasters, climate, human interactions, transportation, mobility, international trade, and globalization and how they affected the economical development of a particular area. 

History:Gives the knowledge of what life was like without money in order to get students to really understand how money facilitates production, distribution, and consumption. History also provides information on how monetary value influenced culture,religion, recreational activities, and more throughout the world. 

Community Studies: Provides examples of community, city, country, continent, and world interdependence within economics in order to understand the importance of working together in order to achieve an overall stability throughout all aspects of life.

Consumer Education: Discusses the importance of consumers by providing information of how these consumers create the economic system of a nation. Within Consumer Education, it is also discussed that the main goal is to make the consumer happy in order to ensure that they will continue to buy the products of a particular individual or company. 

Example of Economics being taught through History

                                               

Geography and Economics

Money from around the world does not hold the same value. Many different factors go into deciding the worth of money within different locations. This is known as currency. (click link for currency calculator)

Why is it that $1.00 of USA money equals $1.08 of Australian money?

Interactive Ways to Teach Economic Education 

Consumers Win Game

Interactive way of understanding how consumers win because of  the competition of producers.