4 SS4

LO 3

 

Clean Land—Thanks to Us!

 

 

 

 

 

Formative Assessment:

 

·        How does our government take care of the people and protect them?

·        How does our government pay for that?

·        Where do all of our tax dollars go?

 

 

 

Instructional Strategies or Activities:

 

Through our government, we, the people, decide on rules to clean our land.  When some individuals harm the land, water or air, the government may require them to change their actions.  Sometimes government uses taxes as a way to increase the private cost of using resources.

 

Our government tries to protect us from all sorts of problems.  Some of the problems are very serious!  A long time ago factories used to dump chemicals into our water, or burn them and let them go into the air.  Animals and people started getting very sick.  So our government set up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

 

Send students to the following websites to learn about the EPA’s job of making sure that our air, water, and Earth are all environmentally safe. 

 

http://www.epa.gov/superfund/kids/alphabet/a.htm

http://www.epa.gov/superfund/kids/intro/indes.htm

 

 

Since private companies cannot charge for the clean environment, then our government provides the environmental protection service.  We call that a public good. Roads, bridges, public schools, police protection, parks, and armed forces are all public goods.

 

Should special taxes be placed on gum?  Since gum often ends up on floors and tables, who will clean up the mess?

 

When private companies cannot charge for that, then our government provides the environmental protection service.  We call that a public good.  Public goods are shared goods.  They benefit many people.  Public schools, police protection, public parks, and armed forces are all shared and are called public goods. 

 

 

Summative Assessment:

 

Pretend that your have a cousin coming to visit you from another country.  This cousin wants to know why you have a sales tax in your state.  Write a letter to your cousin explaining why Americans pay taxes, what the taxes are used for, and identify what a public good is.