This curriculum helps students recognize that the balance we seek presents many difficult problems that demand well thought-out solutions. 3 through 6, includes ten active-learning lessons that teach about economics and the environment. These lessons address the Show-Me Standards and the Illinois Standards. Students discuss the various goods and services provided by the trees, and then conduct a role play to demonstrate the effect of scarcity on a society. Students play the role of producers, deciding what and how to produce in response to various incentives.
Students participate in an egg hunt and then color eggs.
Through these activities, students recognize that decisions they make and actions they take can affect the well-being of others. Students discover that valuable goods and services are provided by both the economy and the environment. They must decide which goods and services they would most want in various situations. They learn that the value of a good or service is the maximum price they are willing and able to pay for it and that the value of goods and services depends on how well the goods and services satisfy wants. Students pretend to be natural resources moving through the cycle of production, consumption and recycling.