Lesson 2, Part 4: Reteach and Enrichment

Reteach

Your teacher will put you in groups of five or six. You and your group are going to write a play. One or two students will be Maria's parent or parents. Maria’s parents are thinking about how to use their land. The other students will be producers. One student will be a builder of houses. One student will be a storekeeper. One student will be a worker for the county. The county wants to build a swimming pool. One student will be a farmer. Each of you should write a short speech. Producers should explain why their plans for the land are the best plans. Then the parents should say who can use the land. Think about opportunity cost and the wishes of consumers and producers. Your teacher will tell you when to perform your play for the rest of the class.

Enrichment

Economists study how people make choices by making an assumption (eh-sump'-shen) about how people make decisions. The assumption is that most people most of the time use rational (rash'-uh-nul) decision-making by comparing payoffs to costs. Imagine that you are walking from a forest toward a river. In between lies a hill. If your goal is to get to the top of the hill, how would you know when you were on top of the hill?

You could use a scientific tool that measures altitude. Or you could look around you until you get to a place where there is no ground above you. Another way is to use what economists call marginal (mar'-jeh-nuhl) analysis (uh-nal'-i-sis). This means studying one step at a time. If the next step takes you upward, take the step and keep going. If the next step takes you downward, stop and back up. If you use this trick, you will stop at the top of the hill. Try it sometime!

So, any time that you are trying to decide how many oranges to buy or to whom to sell your land, you can use marginal analysis. Think of the payoff or worth of your decision and think of the opportunity cost. If the payoff is greater than the cost, make the decision. If the payoff is less than the cost, do not make the decision. This is rational decision-making.

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Teacher's Notes

Reteach

If student performance on Independent Practice is unsatisfactory, use the Reteach activity. In addition, you may choose to use Reteach if your students best learn kinesthetically and auditorily. Follow the instructions in the text for dividing the class into groups. Circulate among the groups as they write their speeches. Make sure that the students who are the parents make a choice among the alternative productive uses for their land. Ask each group to perform its play. Encourage shy students. Be sure to praise each performance. Lead a class discussion about the roles of consumers, producers, and opportunity cost.

Enrichment

Use Enrichment for more advanced students. Students will learn vocabulary terms associated with higher-level study of economics. This lesson introduces the terms assumption, rational, marginal, and analysis. Explain to students that economists assume that people make decisions logically or rationally by comparing benefits to costs. Sometimes costs are measured with money, but even in the absence of money, opportunity cost can be used in the decision-making. Students will return to marginal analysis in Lesson 5.

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