Intermediate Key Ideas
Standard 1	Standard 2	Standard 3	Standard 4	Standard 5

 

Standard 4:  Economics  Intermediate Grades 5-8

Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of how the United States and other societies develop economic systems and associated institutions to allocate scarce resources, how major decision-making units function in the U.S. and other national economies, and how an economy solves the scarcity problem through market and nonmarket mechanisms.

Key Idea 1:  The study of economics requires an understanding of major economic concepts and systems, the principles of economic decision making, and the interdependence of economies and economic systems throughout the world.
Performance Indicators:  This is evident when students 

·          explain how societies and nations attempt to satisfy their basic needs and wants by utilizing scarce capital, natural, and human resources

·          define basic economic concepts such as scarcity, supply and demand, markets, opportunity costs, resources, productivity, economic growth, and systems

·          understand how scarcity requires people and nations to make choices which involve costs and future considerations

·          understand how people in the United States and throughout the world are both producers and consumers of goods and services

·          investigate how people in the United States and throughout the world answer the three fundamental economic questions and solve basic economic problems

·          describe how traditional, command, market, and mixed economies answer the three fundamental economic questions

·          explain how nations throughout the world have joined with one another to promote economic development and growth

 

Key Idea 2:  Economics requires the development and application of the skills needed to make informed and well-reasoned economic decisions in daily and national life.
Performance Indicators:  This is evident when students

·          identify and collect economic information from standard reference works, newspapers, periodicals, computer databases, textbooks, and other primary and secondary sources

·          organize and classify economic information by distinguishing relevant from irrelevant information, placing ideas in chronological order, and selecting appropriate labels for data

·          evaluate economic data by differentiating fact from opinion and identifying frames of reference

·          develop conclusions about economic issues and problems by creating broad statements which summarize findings and solutions

·          present economic information by using media and other appropriate visuals such as tables, charts, and graphs to communicate ideas and conclusions