4 SS4
LO 8
The
Formative
Assessment:
·
If you had five dollars, what would you like
to spend it on?
·
Why do we sometimes have to make choices
about what to buy?
Instructional
Strategies or Activities:
Have students imagine there are only three things
out there that they really want to buy with their five dollars: gum, soda, and movie tickets. Put the following chart on the board: gum--$.50, soda--$1.00, movie ticket--$5.00.
Ask the following questions:
1. How many
sodas can you buy instead of one movie ticket?
2. How many
pieces of gum can you buy instead of one soda?
3. If you buy
four pieces of gum, how many sodas could you have bought?
In order to buy a movie, you need to give up a
certain amount of gum and soda. If you
buy ten pieces of gum, you will give up going to the movie or buying soda. Decisions involve tradeoffs. When you make a choice, you give up an
opportunity to do something else. The
highest-valued item you give up is the opportunity cost of your decision.
For example, if you go to the movies you have to
give up a certain amount of gum and soda.
If you are a sodaholic, you have to give up five sodas. If you are a gum fanatic, you surrender ten packs
of gum. But, the opportunity cost of a
movie is not five sodas and ten packs of gum. It is five sodas or ten packs of gum.
Have students go to http://pojo.com/priceguide/usbasic.html
and answer the following questions.
What is the opportunity cost of an unlimited edition
Mewtwo in terms of other Pokemon cards?
Go back to the gum, soda, movie ticket example. What
is the opportunity cost of an unlimited edition Mewtwo in terms of movie tickets?
All kinds of decisions involve opportunity costs,
not just ones about how to spend your money.
For example, if you have soccer practice when your favorite television
show is on, part of the opportunity cost of soccer practice is missing that
television show. When you made the
choice to join a soccer team, you had to tradeoff missing that television show
for becoming a better player.
Go to http://www.ucomics.com/calvinand
hobbes/1988/11/121.
In the first panel, what does Calvin want to do with
the ball?
Using the ideas of tradeoffs and opportunity cost,
explain why Calvin gives Hobbes the ball.
Summative
Assessment:
Evaluate students on their participation in class
discussions.