Lesson 1: Making Choices About Things You Want

Part 1: Focus

Maria Lopez and Paul Brown had big decisions to make. The two friends had spent the day at their school fair. Maria had won the game where you throw a dart at a wall full of balloons. She had popped one of the red balloons. That meant that she could choose one of the best prizes. But she could choose only one prize. On the shelf was a stuffed monkey and a cool alarm clock with a radio. She really wished that she could pick both prizes, but she had to pick one.

Paul was standing at the food stand. He had played the game where you pick a plastic duck out of the water. His prize was a ticket for one free sandwich. The food stand had cheeseburgers and hot dogs. Paul really wished that he could eat both sandwiches, but he had to pick just one.

Maria chose the alarm clock with the radio. She really liked the stuffed monkey. But she knew that it would just sit on her shelf. She would use the alarm clock every day to get up for school or listen to her favorite music. She decided that the clock radio was a better choice. Paul chose the cheeseburger. He really liked hot dogs. But he had eaten a hot dog for lunch that day. The cheeseburger would be something different to eat. He decided that the cheeseburger was a better choice.
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Teacher's Notes

This is the first of four lessons covering National Council of Economic Education Voluntary Standard 1 for Teaching Economics. Standard 1 is as follows:

Productive resources are limited. Therefore, people cannot have all the goods and services they want; as a result, they must choose some things and give up others.

At the completion of this lesson, students will know the following benchmarks:

1. People make choices because they can't have everything they want.
2. Economic wants are desires that can be satisfied by consuming a good or service.
3. Goods are objects that can satisfy people's wants.
4. Services are actions that can satisfy people's wants.

Focus

Use the story about Maria Lopez and Paul Brown to encourage student interest in the lesson. If the local school fair is not an appropriate example, suggest some other event at which students win prizes. The first key idea to emphasize is that Maria and Paul are put into situations in which they must choose only one of two goods. The second key idea is that this choice does not depend on not having enough money. Money is not even a part of this story. Having to choose can happen whether money is involved or not. This fact allows discussion of basic economic principles even though money is not introduced until later lessons.
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