Economics Wisconsin

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Wisconsin Economic Standard
D.4.6 

Economic Institutions

Identify the economic roles of various institutions, including households, businesses, and government

Economic Concepts
Household  ||  Business  ||  Government

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Links to Content Information

blue check mark A Citizen's Guide to the Federal Budget: The Guide is designed to give you a walking tour of the budget of the Federal Budget. In these pages, we will outline for you how the Government raises revenues and spends money, how the President and Congress enact the budget, why the budget deficit and Federal debt have been problems, and what the President hopes to accomplish with his 2000 budget.
blue check mark Economic Statistics Briefing Room - Statisical tables on many aspects of the U.S. economy.
blue check mark Tax Interactive: An on-line 'zine for understanding taxes - Information about taxes from the IRS.
blue check mark Budgeting Your Financal Resources - Financial planning helps you use your money to get the most out of life.  Equipped with an understanding of financial planning, students are better able to adapt to ever-changing economic conditions.

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Links to Lesson Plans and other Suggested Teaching Strategies

blue arrow The Berenstain Bears' Trouble with Money - Students read about the cubs' spendthrift ways and how Mama and Papa Bear teach them to earn and save.
blue arrow Old Business, New Business - Grades 3-5. Students identify goods and services and learn that specialization leads to greater interdependence.
blue arrow What, How and for Whom to Produce - Students learn how command and market economies answer the basic economic questions: What to produce? How to produce? For whom to produce?
blue arrow The School Store - Grade 4. Students will categorize store items, use the computer, and determine which jobs are better handled by computers and humans.
blue arrow Other Web Sites - This page lists web sites offering a wealth of lesson plans for teaching economics, in addition to these lesson plans.

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List of Curricular Materials and Learning Activities

blue push pin Master Curriculum Guide in Economics: Teaching Strategies 3-4, from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin.  Lesson 6: Circles Within Circles - Through a skit, students learn how a circular flow of goods and services and resources operates in a market economy. 
blue push pin The Community Publishing Company - Grades 3-5.  In this series of 33 lessons, students explore their communities, then write reports, form a publishing company, and manufacture and sell their book. Through this involving and motivating program, students learn economic concepts: scarcity, opportunity cost and trade-offs, productivity, economic institutions and incentives, exchange, money, and interdependence, markets and prices, supply and demand.  From Economics America (search catalogue), available from  Economics Wisconsin.
blue push pin Eco-Sense: It's Elementary from Business Economic Education Foundation, 123 North Third Street, Suite 504, Minneapolis, MN 55401; (612) 337-5252. Grades 2-6. Unit 1, Section A: What am I? A Consumer or a Producer?, Lessons 1-2  -  Economic Concepts: Consumer, goods, services
blue push pin Economics for the Elementary Classroom by Elaine C. Coulson and Sarapage McCorkle, 1982. St. Louis, MO: SPEC Publishers.  The following lessons for grades 2-6: 
    * Designer Necklaces - pp. 76-77 
    * Dandy Dollar Takes a Trip - pp. 85-95
blue push pin Virtual Economics: An Interactive Center for Economic Education, Version 2 - Each exhibit includes teaching tips, background information, a list of lessons, and video and audio clips that give additional information about the topic.  Available from Economics America (search catalogue). 
  • In section Fundamental Economics, see exhibit:  Economic Institutions and Incentives
  • In section MacroEconomics, see exhibit:  Fiscal Policy
  • In section MicroEconomics, see exhibit:  Roles of Government

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National Content Standard 6 and its benchmarks

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Email an expert

      Professor Mark Schug - University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

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Developed by 
Lynn Kirby, Ph.D.
Larry Weiser, Ph.D.