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Investigate how socio-economic scarcity manifests in the lives and learning capacity of youth, as well as how support systems within the community and education system offer assistance, advocacy and programs to promote financial sustainability.

Students learn about scarcity, alternatives, choices, and opportunity costs by reading "So Few of Me" by Peter H. Reynolds. The class participates in an activity to help Perdita figure out her morning schedule at summer camp.

In this lesson, students will be introduced to the concepts of resources, scarcity, human capital and boycott. After reading a reality-based story about an all-black Little League team that faced racial prejudice, students will determine resources used in the production of baseball-related goods and complete comprehension and analysis-driven activities tied to key vocabulary covered within the lesson. Specifically, students will identify examples of scarcity, interpret consequences of various actions and determine ways to improve human capital. Additionally, K-2 grade students will interpret textual and visual data, while 3-4 grade students will work together to solve mathematical problems based on the story

PR’s Planet Money is a podcast about the economy for people who think they aren’t interested in economics. Over 10 years and more than 1,000 episodes, the podcast has drawn millions of regular listeners through humor, storytelling and an accessible style.

This video from the Explore Economics series helps kids understand that people buy and use both goods and services. Kids learn that goods are objects that satisfy people’s wants and services are things people do for us that satisfy our wants. Kids are encouraged to draw a picture of a good or service that starts with the first letter of their first or last name and to write a sentence that describes the good or service they drew. They learn a song about goods and services.

Saving the Environment with Economic Ideas is a set of lessons for high school that provide students with the opportunity to participate in simulations. These simulations demonstrate the potential results of economic-related actions and policies taken and made by the government, businesses, or individuals to conserve and protect many of the natural resources used in the production and consumption of goods and services. Students see in action concepts such as resource allocation, scarcity, value, property rights, negative externalities, and emissions taxes and are encouraged to have lively discussions about what they observe and apply it in various situations. Engaging students in hands-on simulations and application of real environmental concerns helps students learn and analyze how economics plays a significant role in developing ideas and solutions that are put into action to save the environment.

Seas, Trees, and Economies is a set of lessons for students in middle grades—grades 6-8. These lessons are written to help students understand the relationship between our natural environment and the economy as well as to describe how the environment and the economy jointly provide us with the goods and services that we want. The lessons provide students with the tools they need to recognize the fundamental trade-offs, to explain how and why choices are made, and to explain how people can make better choices regarding the use of natural resources and the disposal of wastes that production and consumption unavoidably create. Most lessons employ simulations and other active-learning strategies to engage students in the learning process and to provide experiences to help them discover why things happen as they do.

The study of economics is built on the foundation of three very important concepts: scarcity, choice, and opportunity cost. In this episode of the Economic Lowdown video series, economic education Coordinator Scott Wolla uses these three concepts to explain why there is no such thing as a free lunch.

This lesson requires two class periods. In the first class period, students are asked to think of a way to decide who gets 100 pennies and how many each person gets. They learn about the concept of allocation and about different resource allocation methods. They evaluate the different methods using a graphic organizer. Next they listen to different scenarios and try to determine which allocation method was used. Then, after listening to the story Four Feet, Two Sandals about two girls who face some resource allocation issues, they identify the methods used in the story. In the second class period, the students are placed into groups to act out skits illustrating a resource allocation method that their classmates then try to guess. Finally, they read a news article about a resource and write letters to a city council outlining the ways the city could allocate the resource.

Students gain experience in geographic thinking using different types of maps to locate information. They begin by reviewing a current population map of the United States and answering questions about the map and its features. Next, they listen to the book Treasure Map, a story about a group of students who go on a treasure hunt. The students then practice mapping by creating a floor plan of their classroom. Next, they use this map to hunt for clues in the classroom. Finally, they practice their map-reading skills by using a thematic map (population) to answer the clues and solve a puzzle.