Economics - 3rd Hour - Semester 2 - 20/21 Assignments

In this lesson we will apply what we have been learning. You will choose 2 countries to work with. You will identify their GDP Annual Growth Rate, Unemployment Rate, and Inflation Rate. You will use those to diagnose which economic goal you think needs the most help and describe a policy you might use to do that.

If you were absent today, or if you would like to review this lesson on your own, please use these links.

This assignment is about how the government spends money to stimulate the economy. Below I've attached an excerpt from an article from the Wall Stree Journal. Start by reading that excerpt.


Then, in the space provide here, respond to these prompts:


1. Identify 2 changes the federal government has made to the Child Tax Credit.
2. Is this policy more likely to FIRST increase demand (consumption) or supply (production) in the economy?


I have also linked to the full article if you would like to try to read that on your own time. It may be hidden behind a paywall. If it is not, the WSJ has a feature that will read the article to you.

Today we will introduce the topic of government spending and how it affects the economy. We will look closely at why the government would target a supply side or demand side policy.

This is the lesson we did together in class on Monday and Tuesday. If you were absent those days, please do this lesson. If you were present those days but would like more practice, use this lesson for review.

Today we will watch the video from last week again, and do an activity to analyze the argument the video makes for its prefered tax policy. We will work on this together in class.

The government, through its power of taxation, removes resources(money and property) from the free market economy in order to redistribute those resources to the population. This redistribution includes paying for roads, schools, police, fire, military, sports stadiums, entitlements, subsidies, etc.

Most people agree that taxes are necessary but that too much taxation is bad for the economy. The most effective taxes are simple, equitable, and efficient.

One question we ask when deciding on taxes is who should pay them. Below are two answers to that question:

1. People who get the benefit from the government service should have to pay, i.e. if you drive a car you pay a gas tax, or if you drive on a toll(tax) road you pay the toll(tax). - Benefit Principle

2. People who have the ability to pay should have to pay, i.e. if someone earns more than enough income for them to live comfortably, they should pay more in tax than someone who does not earn enough income. - Ability to Pay Principle

Another question we ask is what type of tax? There are 3 types:

1. Progressive - The more resources/wealth/income you have, the higher percentage of taxes you pay. One example is income taxes.
2. Regressive - The less resources/wealth/income you have, the higher percentage of taxes you pay. One example is sales taxes on necessary goods and services.
3. Proportional - Everyone pays the same percentage of tax regardles of their resources/wealth/income. One example is property taxes.

In this assignment you are going to explore the answer to those questions: Who should have to pay taxes. First, we will build some background together about taxes. Second, watch the video and respond to the questions in the attached Google Form. This is what you will turn in.

We will use the Google Slideshow below to illustrate the interactions of the macroeconomy

We will work on this in class today. Most students should be able to complete this during the class session. If you don't complete it in class, you must complete it as homework. The instructions are in the document.


I have set the due date for today. If you don't get it done today, reminder, I accept work up to 7 days past the deadline with no penalty, so don't stress.

We will use this slideshow to address monetary policy today.

Use the retirement savings calculator from Nerd Wallet to respond to the questions in the Google Form below.

Today we will try to answer this question. As we established the other day, money has more forms than just the paper and coin currency. Our economic system is creating more money every single day. This process involves banks, people and businesses making deposits, and also taking loans.


The Federal Reserve's role in all of this is to monitor how much money is being created, and using their "tools" to either speed up or slow down that process. When they do this they have to balance risks. If they speed the process up too fast (easy-money policy) then we risk inflation. If they slow it down too much (tight-money policy) then we risk a recession.

Please use this Google Slides to take notes today.

We will use the Google Slides file below to introduce macroeconomics today.

We are nearing the end of our microeconomics unit. In class, on Monday, I will explain this assessment, answer questions, and give you an opportunity to begin work on it. You should consider this the equivalent of a test.

Step by step instructions:

1. Look at the Commodity Student Assignment file to find out which commodity you have been assigned. There is a link to the page you need on Trading Economics in this file. Click on the commodity name assigned to you.
2. Complete the Microeconomics Student Planning Worksheet.
3. Look at the Exemplar I have provided to see how to format and construct your report.
4. Write your report using the Google Doc provided below.
5. Check your report against the rubric and the exemplar to make sure you have completed everything correctly.
6. Turn this assessment in.

Some guidance:

1. Use the planning worksheet. It will set you up for success.
2. Please use the exemplar for sentence stems. Students who do that consistently score the highest on this assessment.
3. You will need to do some outside research to figure out if it is supply or demand affecting your market. You must include a link to whatever sites you use.
4. Plagiarism will be identified and you may receive zero credit.
5. I recommend doing this one day, then come back to it and read it again, with the rubric, and make edits. This should not be a one-and-done assessment. Take advantage of the fact that this is a take home test.

Requirements:

Your report must include 2 sections, separated by a graph from tradingeconomics.com.

The first section must describe your commodity, the current price, the change in price over the previous 12 months, and 3 uses of the commodity.

The second section must be a description of the causes of that change in price. You must use proper economics vocabulary. You will need to do independent research for this part.

Formatting requirements are: 12 point font; Arial or Times New Roman; 1 inch margins; double-spaced; no more than two pages.

Plagiarism, copying, cheating or any other form of academic misconduct may result in a failing score on the final assessment. If you lose points for academic misconduct you will not be granted an opportunity to redo or makeup the assessment.

You may review the exemplar I have provided for an idea of how your final report should look. You may use any of the sentences from the exemplar as sentence stems, but you may not copy and paste from the exemplar.

This is not required. This is a make up opportunity for students who were absent when we did this lesson together. If you need to review this or need to complete it, please do so.

In class today, we will use this spread sheet to identify commodity price changes and the likely causes of those changes.

If you were absent on Wednesday March 3 *2nd and 3rd hour) or Thursday March 4th (5th and 6th hour). Please complete this quizizz lesson to earn credit for that day.

Create your own scenario for a change in supply.

1. Choose a determinant of supply. You can find these listed in the notes posted under the Week 6 category. I recommend chosing one you feel like you understand well.

2. Create a scenario (short story) describing a change in supply that is caused by the determinant of supply you choose in Step 1.

3. In your scenario, describe whether supply will increase or decrease as a result of that change in supply from Step 2.

4. Finally, describe whether price will likely increase or decrease due to the change in supply from Step 3.

Please keep your response to NO MORE than 250 words.

Please respond to this Quizizz. You only need to do it one time. I want to see where we are with this knowledge today.

If you want to take multiple attempts, please do no more than 3.

Create your own scenario for a change in demand.

1. Write a short scenario for a change in demand.
2. Identify which determinant of demand the scenario involves.
3. Explain whether demand will increase or decrease.
4. Explain whether price will increase or decrease as a result of that change.

Please keep your response to NO MORE than 250 words.

Today we will introduce a website we will use this semester for finding economic data. We will practice reading the tables and graphs on this website, and writing sentences and adding graphs to an economic report using Google Docs.

We will work on this in class together today.

Prices are a cause of individual consumer and producer choices. The choices of consumers and producers are predictable. Consumers want as much as possible for as little money as possible. Producers want to earn as much profit as possible. This means changes in price will lead to different choices by consumers and producers.

Consumers will decrease their quantity demanded if they see higher prices. Consumers will increase their quantity demanded if they see lower prices.

Producers will increase their quantity supplied if they see higher prices. Producers will decrease their quantity supplied if they see lower prices.

If many, many consumers or many, many producers are all making decisions the same way, this can lead to changes in Demand or Supply. There are categories of behaviors that can cause changes in demand or supply. These are sometimes called determinants. In the homework for Week 3 and Week 4, you will complete the tables in the Google Sheet attached below.

In these tables, you will define each factor that affects demand and supply. You will give an example of it. You will identify a market to use as a case study. You will describe a change in that category in that market. Finally, you will describe if it leads to an increase or decrease in Demand or Supply.

For the demand table, use Chapter 4, Section 2 of the textbook. For the supply table, use Chapter 5, section 1 of the textbook. I have also provided an example in each table for you to reference. There are infinite acceptable responses in this assignment. The most important thing is that Column G is an accurate effect of the change you describe in Column F.

We will use this Google Slideshow for the lesson on Wednesday (2nd & 3rd hour) and Thursday (5th & 6th hour).

Now that we have laid the foundation for economics and the free enterprise system, we are going to begin looking at how prices work in the marketplace. As we established last week, the fundmental economic problem is that human wants and needs are unlimited and the resources to meet those needs are insufficient (scarce).

In order to solve that problem, societies have to answer 3 basic questions. 1. What will we produce? 2. How will we produce it? 3. Who will get it? (For whom?) In the free enterprise system (capitalism) consumers answer "What?". Producers answer "How?". And, price determines "For whom?".

Today's we are going to learn about prices. In a free enterprise system, prices are both causes of consumer and producer choices, and effected by collective consumer and producer behaviors. For example: they are a cause of consumer choices because if a price of a good or service is too high, people won't purchase that good or service. Likewise, the higher a price, the more people will try to offer that good or sevice for sale.

Price is effected by the collective behaviors of consumers and producers because if there is a change in the behaviors of all or most of the consumers (demand) or producers (supply) in a market, it will cause price to increase or decrease. An example of this is what happened in the stock market a couple weeks ago with Gamestop shares and apps like Robinhood. Robinhood allows people to buy and sell ownership in companies (shares). A group of consumers (investors), on the website Reddit, all agreed to buy stock in Gamestop. This increase in demand caused the price of Gamestop shares to increase.

Today's assignment will be trying to identify the causes of changes in prices of grocery items. You will use the article linked below to complete the table in the Google Sheet. In the Google Sheet you are identifying two pieces of information for each of the food items in the article.

1. How much (in percentage) did the price change?
2. What likely caused that change? You only have two choices for this item, from a drop down. They are a change in demand or a change in supply.

Demand refers to the choices and behaviors of consumers. Supply refers to the choices and behaviors of producers. If the article indicates that it is conumser behavior causing the price change, you would choose, "change in demand" for item 2.

As you fill in the Google Sheet, the cells will change to green once you have the correct answer.

Lastly, for some of the food items in the article, the answer will be "right there" in that the article will describe consumer or producer behavior. For others you will have to read closely and make up your own mind about what is causing the change in price.

We will use this Google Slideshow in class to describe, evaluate and list examples of economic and social goals. This Chapter 2, section 2 is where you will find the answers to this.

Using Chapter 2, Section 3 of your textbook, complete the graphic organizer on Slide 2.
You need to identify (name) and describe the characteristics of a free enterprise system (capitalism).

Using Chapter 1, Section 1 of your textbook, complete the graphic organizer on Slide 3.
You need to insert an image of each factor of production and write one sentence describing each.

We will use this slideshow for today's classwork.

We will complete this assignment as bellwork today at the beginning of class.

If you were unable to complete this quizizz in class today. Please use the link below. You get credit for completing this, don't worry about how many right or wrong answers you get. Just do your best.

Please use this Google Doc to take notes during today's session.

In the Google Slideshow is a series of events described in the article.

Put these events in the correct sequence.
This is their chronological sequence, NOT the order they appear in the article.

Identify one event as a cause, highlight it green
There is more than one event that can be a cause.

Identify another event as an effect of that cause, highlight it yellow
Make sure you identify something that is an effect of the event you highlighted green.
I want to see if you can distinguish between things that happened earlier (preceding events), and things that are causes of future events.

Use the Google Slides presentation linked below to share information about yourself.

1. Find the slide with your name on it and only work on that slide.
2. Respond to at least 3 of these prompts on your slide.
3. This is a collaborative slideshow so that we can all see everyone's work. Please be as open as you are comfortable being, but also, please do not share private or personal information.

How old are you?
What city do you live in?
How many siblings do you have?
What is your favorite food?
What is your favorite movie?
Who is your favorite musical artist?
What is your favorite book?
What is your favorite TV show?
What are some of your other favorite things?
Is there something you would like the teacher and your classmates to know about you?