17
Lesson 2: Waste Is In the Eye of the Beholder
Concepts
 Choices
 Supply
 Incentives
 Prices
 Scarcity
Content Standards:
Standard 4: People respond predictably to positive and negative incentives.
Standard 8: Prices send signals and provide incentives to buyers and sellers. When supply or
demand changes, market prices adjust, affecting incentives.
Overview
Students learn that the value of water is subjective – determined by its perceived availability and
people’s individual interests in any specific situation, rather than by some absolute standard or
physical measurement. In the process, they recognize that their judgments about whether others
are "wasting water" are also subjective, and result from imposing their own values on other
people's choices and actions.
Introduction
If water is necessary for life, why are diamonds more valuable? Water is cheap and diamonds are
expensive even though we know that water is scarce. We could live without diamonds, but not
without water; yet we use water as if it weren't valuable. Drought, water shortages, and water
rationing are recurring news stories. Still, we act as if we had an endless supply, running water
down the drain while we brush our teeth or down the gutter when we clean the driveway. Why is
that? Economists call this the diamond-water paradox.
It would be easy to lay the blame on greed or thoughtlessness, but blaming "bad" people has (at
best) limited usefulness. And surely, we all know people who are neither greedy nor thoughtless
who use water with little apparent concern that it will run out. This lesson suggests that we can
learn more by examining the institutions our society uses to allocate water than we can by pointing
fingers at others’ “wasteful” practices.
When it comes to water use, price and availability are the key considerations. How easy is it for
us to get water? What do we have to give up to get it? For most of us, not very much, especially
not in comparison to what we must give up to get a diamond. How hard is it for us to get more
water? Again, for most of us, it’s not very hard. When was the last time you turned on the faucet
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and no water came out? As long as the price is low and water is easily available, we will use
water in ways others might think wasteful. When price and availability change, our use will
change.
Anyone who has hiked or backpacked in a hot environment knows how carefully hikers use the water
in their canteens, and television news reports remind us how valuable water is to people caught up
in natural disasters. But students may not realize that our everyday use of water is guided by the
same principles as those involved in extreme or extraordinary circumstances. The ship-wrecked
sailor and the backyard gardener both use water in response to their judgment about how much
water is readily available and how much they must pay in time, effort, or money to get it. This is
another way of saying that, from their own points of view, people use water rationally. As students
participate in Lesson 2, they learn that:
 people usually have good reasons (even if they aren't your reasons) for the ways in which
they choose to use water; and
 in order to change the way people use water, we must change the incentives they face.
As more American cities search for ways to avoid future water shortages, they find that if they
give signals to show that water is precious, people respond by using less. One of the most effective
signals is price; we have much evidence that changing the price of water changes the amount of water
people use. As we know from our study of markets, at higher prices, people use less of a given
commodity and search for alternative means of achieving their ends. Water is no exception.
Evidence that city residents react to changes in the price of water is found all around the United
States. For example, Tucson, Arizona was able to reduce average daily demand for water by 27
percent in 1977, by adding price increases to their water rationing system. (Anderson &
Wentworth, 1997, p. 338) Changing the price of water has proven to be more effective at
impacting water consumption than other, non-price mechanisms such as rationing, outdoor
water bans, or requiring particular technologies like low-flow faucets and toilets.
“The gains from using prices as an incentive for conservation come from allowing
households to respond to increased water prices in the manner of their choice. . . .
Some households would be expected to plant fewer green lawns or install frontloading clothes washing machines, for example, in areas where water prices are
relatively high (Olmstead and Stavins, 2007, p. 5).”
Using price to impact behavior is not only more effective than non-price programs, but also has
lower costs to monitor and enforce.
“Where water savings have been estimated from non-price approaches, they are
usually smaller than expected, due to behavioral responses. For example, they
may take longer showers with low-flow shower heads, flush twice with low-flow
toilets, and water longer under day-of-the-week or time-of-the-day restrictions.
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. . . In a study of 85 urban water utilities in California during a prolonged drought
in the 1990s, more than half of customers violated quantity-of-use restrictions,
where these were implemented, and compliance with type-of-use restrictions
were also very low. . . .
A recent study of 12 cities in the United States and Canada suggests that
replacing two-day-per-week outdoor watering restrictions with drought pricing
could achieve the same level of aggregate water savings, along with welfare
gains of approximately $81 per household per summer drought (Olmstead and
Stavins, 2007, p. 4-5)”
Research has also demonstrated the responsiveness of agriculture to changing water prices,
which is an important finding, given that 80-90% of all water consumption involves agriculture.
Agricultural economist Del Gardner found that:
“ . . . a 10 percent increase in the price [of water] would cause an overall average
consumption decrease of 3.7 percent for the seventeen western states. Gardner
estimates that...a 10 percent increase in price would yield a 20 percent decrease
in water use in California.
. . . [I]f water costs more, farmers will use less on any particular crop; they will
shift to different irrigation technology or water application practices; and they will
change cropping patterns. . . . Flood irrigation techniques conserve on labor but use
large amounts of cheap water. With higher water prices, it makes sense to
substitute labor and capital for water and to use drip irrigation or similar
techniques. In a simulation of a 640-acre farm in Yolo County, California,
Hedges showed that the optimal cropping pattern at a zero water price would call
for 150 acres each of tomatoes, sugar beets, and wheat; 47 acres of alfalfa, 65 acres of
beans; and 38 acres of safflower. If the water price rose to $13.50 per acre-foot,
water-intensive alfalfa acreage would drop out and safflower acreage, [which
requires] less water, would expand. “(Bailey, 1995, pp. 283-284)
Students might reasonably ask, "If farmers can make changes in order to use less water (or if we
can turn off the faucet when brushing our teeth), why don't they?" Here it is easy to say that water
users "don't care." But this misses the point: the choice in each case involves a cost—in time,
money, or (as in the case of brushing teeth) inconvenience.
“The water utility industry has done a good job for consumers. Unfortunately,
because of this good job, water users have adjusted their way of life so that needs
of water are great...thus, how much water consumers need depends not only on
willingness and ability to pay, but most importantly on the real price charged. If it
is a lot, only a modest amount of water is needed. If the charge is a little, a lot is
needed. (Anderson & Wentworth, 1997, p. 338.)”
Unfortunately, only rarely today does the current price of water reflect its scarcity. The traditional
pricing method for most municipalities and much irrigation water is known as cost-based pricing.
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“This pricing method quantifies the costs of capture, treatment and conveyance.
As such, this method can often obscure the larger but less quantifiable societal
interests in preserving our water resources.” http://www.epa.gov/OWOWM.html/cwfinance/cwsrf/consrvprice.pdf
“Most Americans pay less for water than they do for cable television or cell phone
service. Water is ridiculously cheap in the United States. Nationwide, Americans
pay an average $2.50 per 1,000 gallons; that’s $0.0025 per gallon, or four gallons
for a penny. . . . It costs the typical American family approximately $20 per
month for water (Glennon 2009, 223).
While many municipalities charge a constant price per unit of water used, water utilities are
increasingly beginning to charge higher fees for increased water use. This usually comes in the
form of block pricing where the price for a set quantity of water is constant per unit, increasing (or
sometimes decreasing) when quantity consumed exceeds the set threshold. But, even under block
pricing, most water pricing is still cost-based.
Agricultural users also generally pay less than the actual value of water. Western water law allows
many farmers to pump ground water or divert river water without ever paying for the water itself,
and government projects provide water to farmers at well below cost. “The U.S. farmer, for
example, typically pays only one-fifth of the true cost of irrigation from federal projects. The
situation is much the same throughout the rest of the world, where revenues collected from farmers
barely cover 10-20 percent of the construction and operating costs.” (Social Education [October
1997], p. 338)
Cost-based pricing understates the value of water. Economic reasoning tells us that the full price of
water includes not only the cost of water provision but also the opportunity cost; the value of
alternative water uses. Pricing water at its real value would encourage water conservation and
more efficient water use.
“Raising the price of water would encourage all users – homeowners, farmers,
businesses, and industrial users – to examine carefully how they use water, for
what purposes, and in what quantity. Economists agree that rate increases would
encourage water users to eliminate marginal economic uses and use the water for
more productive purposes. An increase in rates might stimulate new water-saving
technologies and efforts to harvest water. Effluent water would become more
attractive to potential users as the price of potable water rises (Glennon 2009,
226).”
Lesson Two helps students see that the way people use water depends—on the conditions in
which they find themselves, on their interests and personal preferences, and most importantly on
the price and availability of water. When people use something precious for ordinary purposes,
they probably do so because the resource in question costs them little and they have no reason to
believe it will be difficult to get more. Few of us really believe that turning off the water when we
brush our teeth will save the planet, or even significantly reduce our water bills.
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Time Required:
 3 class periods
Materials:
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Jump ropes, hula hoops, or other fun exercise equipment (optional)
large bottle(s) of cold soft drink
bag of candy treats
Simple “costumes” for Romeo and Juliet (hats, name-tags, capes, etc.), and a very small
paper cup with about ½ - 1” of water
a “note” from Romeo, folded into a paper airplane
2 laminated copies Romeo and Juliet script
Visuals 1, 2, and 3 – overhead transparency or powerpoint slide
classroom bucks, 6-8 per student
student handout – 1/student
Procedure
1. Announce that students will begin a study of an important contemporary issue – the use of
our precious water resources – by watching a play about a well-known historic romance.
While the actors are preparing, the class will consider a few preliminary questions about
water use.
Ask for volunteers to participate in a short and very famous play about two lovers, Romeo
and Juliet. Give the laminated scripts to the actors and give them a few minutes to read over the
script and get into their costumes while you discuss the water use with the class:

Do you think wasting water is a problem in today's world? Elaborate and give
examples. (Accept a variety of responses.)

What is a wasteful use of water? How did you determine that it is wasteful? (Accept a
variety of responses.)

Why do people waste water? (Accept a variety of responses.)

How do we try to stop people from wasting water? Why do you think we are
successful or unsuccessful in these efforts? (Accept a variety of responses.)
2. When the class discussion is finished and the actors are ready, set the stage and prepare
the class for the play:
Ladies and gentlemen, you have surely heard the tragic tale of Romeo and Juliet, the starcrossed lovers of old Verona who died for each other rather than deny their love. William
Shakespeare has immortalized their story in his famous play, which still has the power to
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22
move theater audiences to tears. But Shakespeare did not tell the whole story the story
of how Romeo almost blew it even before things turned really bad. Ladies and gentlemen,
we now present the TRUE tale of Romeo and Juliet.
3. After the performance, discuss:

What did Romeo do wrong? (Romeo got Juliet something she could easily get for
herself.)

Was Romeo right? Is water precious? Why? (Romeo was right. Water is precious. We
need it to sustain life. But that doesn't necessarily make it valuable in this situation.)

Was Juliet dumb to expect diamonds rather than water? Why? (No. Juliet expects
Romeo to find her something rare and wonderful that she can't easily get for herself.)

Why would Juliet rather have diamonds than water? (Accept a variety of answers,
pointing to the idea that Juliet, and probably most people, think of diamonds as very
rare and thus precious.)

Display Visual 1. Which is more valuable, diamonds or water? (It depends. What do
we want or need the water for? How easy is it to get more water?) Explain that
economists refer to this as the diamond/water paradox: we say that water is more
valuable than diamonds because it’s essential to life, but we don’t act that way. Our
Romeo and Juliet scenario illustrates that paradox. Romeo gives Juliet something
essential to life, but she’s not impressed and throws it back in his face.

Would anyone other than Romeo rather have water than diamonds? Why or why not?
(Again, it depends. Most people know that they can get water easily and so can
everyone else. Ordinarily, then, they would rather have a diamond, which they can't get
so easily. However, a person dying of thirst would rather have water.)

Do you think Juliet knows that water is precious? (Yes.)
Was she wasting water when she threw it in Romeo's face? (Who gets to decide if it is
wasteful? The value of water at that minute was related to its usefulness to Juliet for
expressing her displeasure. And she certainly didn't have to worry about getting more.
There was plenty of water in old Verona.)

Would Juliet have acted differently if she had learned in school that water is valuable
and throwing it in people's faces is wasteful? Why or why not? (Probably not. The
most valuable use to Juliet at that moment was to throw it. No incentive at the moment
encouraged her, say, to pour it into a flower pot instead.)
4. Step two in examining the diamond/water paradox is to answer the question of why people
would use something precious for an ordinary purpose, and why it doesn't do much good for
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us to scold them about it or ask them to change their behavior?
To do this, students are going to need some money – classroom bucks. In order to get the money,
they have to exercise. Quiet the chorus of groans by telling the students that you will pay
them classroom bucks for exercising and after the exercises they may spend their classroom
bucks at a snack auction. Set out the jump ropes, hula hoops, etc, and list acceptable
exercises: jogging, jumping rope, twirling hula hoops, doing sit-ups, push-ups, jumping
jacks, and so forth. Explain that the more students exercise, the more you will pay them.
Rules for the exercise period:

Exercise time will last for ____ minutes (3-5 suggested. Set a timer.)

You may stop to rest whenever you want to and for as long as you want to.

You may change exercises whenever you want to.

While you are exercising, I will pay you for your efforts.

Put a sheet of notebook paper with your name on it on the floor near you before you start
exercising. I will put classroom bucks on your paper as 1 walk around and will tell you
how many bucks I've put there.

You may not leave the room to get a drink or drink from a water bottle

You may not pick up the money from another student's paper.
When there are no more questions about the rules, ask the students to push all the desks to the
sides of the room and to take their name papers to an exercise spot. (Or take the students
outside or into a hallway.)
5. When the students are safely situated with room to exercise, start the timer. Go around the
room, encouraging and paying exercisers. The purpose is twofold: to make the students thirsty
and to give them income to spend. It doesn't matter how much money you distribute, so use it
liberally (5-8 classroom bucks per student) to encourage students to persist throughout the
exercise period and to make them very thirsty. However, because you want all students to
participate in the auction, make sure that no student gets significantly more than anyone else.
6. End the exercise period. Direct students to pick up their classroom bucks and count them; then
to move forward and sit on the floor in front of the snack bar. When the students are ready,
bring out one glass of soft drink with ice, keeping the rest hidden. Say that you forgot the candy,
but promise that you will have it tomorrow and tell the students that they may save their
classroom bucks to buy candy then. (Without the candy, the students will tend to spend all their
money on the cup of soft drink. Offering the promise of candy, however, provides an
alternative for those who don't want a soft drink and/or a reason for saving rather than spending
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all their money.)
7. Auction the glass of soft drink to the highest bidder. During the auction, keep track of which
student is the second-highest bidder. Let the purchaser gloat a little bit while you discuss the
following questions with the class.

How valuable is a drink? How do you know?

[To the student with the drink] How valuable is the drink to you?

How much money did you spend?

How much money did you have?
(Accept a variety of answers, but encourage the students to realize that in market economies
such as ours the value of a product is determined by how much people are willing to pay for
it.)

[To other students] Were you willing to spend that much? Why didn't you? (Solicit a
variety of answers to show that people not only have different incomes, but also
different tastes and preferences.)
8. Identify the second-highest bidder. "Discover" a second glass of soft drink behind your
desk and ask the second-highest bidder if he would like to purchase it for his bid price in
the previous auction. After the drink has been sold for the second-highest price, ask:

Were the two drinks the same? (Yes.)

Why was the drink worth more to the first bidder than to the second one? If the drinks
were the same, why were they valued differently? (Value depends on the buyer's
willingness to pay.)
9. Bring out a tray with 10 to 15 cups of soft drink. Auction them and record the sale prices.
Ask:

Why were the bids lower this time than in the previous two auctions?

What factors seem to determine how valuable the soft drink is? (It should now be more
apparent to students that the determination of value depends in part on people's
expectation of how hard it would be to get more. As more cups of soft drink were
available, the price fell.)

What would you predict would happen if I brought out 20 more cups of drink? (Prices
would go down even more. Some cups of soda might not be purchased at all!)
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
[To the purchaser of the first drink] Supposing that you had enough classroom bucks,
would you be willing to pay the same price for a second cup of drink? For a third?
(Probably not. It is obvious that more soft drink is available).
10. Remind students that they can spend their remaining bucks on candy tomorrow—but only
if they keep the secret about more drinks in the auction, and don't tip off your other class.
11. Now turn your attention to how people use water, keeping in mind our analysis of the soft
drink exercise. On what basis do people make decisions about water use? (People's use of
water depends on price and on their expectations about the future availability of more
water.)

How much would each of you have been willing to pay for that first cup of soft
drink? How much do you suppose people who have no water would be willing to pay
for the first cup? (This will be difficult for some students because they will have trouble
imagining a world without water—where that first cup is literally the difference between
life and death. It might help some of them to think of a lost-in-the-desert scenario or of
a real natural disaster such as the devastation wrought by the earthquake in Haiti 2010.
What would you pay for a drink in these cases? You'd pay anything you had.)

If water is so valuable that you would be willing to pay anything or everything to get
it, why is the price we normally pay so low? (Note that there are two parts to this
answer. First, we usually are not bidding for the first drink, and the 80th drink is not
as valuable to us as the first one. Second, we usually are not worried about where or
whether we'll be able to get the next drink.)
12. Help students connect the two activities – the play and the drink auction. Ask:

What is the same and what is different about the Romeo and Juliet story and our activity
involving soft drinks? (Encourage students to point out the obvious differences—water
versus soft drink, different uses for the liquid, and so forth; but then concentrate on the
similarities. Emphasize (a) that the value, in each case, depended on the perceptions of
the person involved, and (b) that those perceptions were shaped by personal preferences
and tastes, and by the supply of the good.)

How could you change the Romeo and Juliet story so that Juliet would be overjoyed
with Romeo's gift, and the audience would find it believable? (What if they had been
stranded on a desert island for two weeks?)
Closure
13. Review the paradox of water: Water is so precious that we cannot live without it; yet its price
is relatively low because (for us) the supply is relatively great and the opportunity cost to get
more water is low. While water is important, we have no reason to believe we won't be able to
get it when we want it. We turn on the faucet and there it is! In turn, the relatively low price
that most of us pay for water reinforces our belief that there is plenty of water.
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14. Discuss:

Why does the value of water vary from time to time, even when the amount of water
doesn’t? (Because water is like other goods, services, and resources sold in a market
economy. The value of water is not determined by its physical characteristics but by the
circumstances and by people's assessment of how much water is readily available.
This is true for other things as well. Consider how the supply of certain works of art
or baseball cards affects their price. In general, the greater the supply, the lower the
price.)

Which is more valuable—water to irrigate crops or water to nurture a beautiful valley
where people like to picnic? Water to grow lawns or water to wash cars? (Again, the
answer is it depends. The appropriate response to this question is "To whom?" or
"Under what conditions?")

Why can't we provide for all the uses of water that people value? (Water is scarce, like
everything else. There is not enough water to satisfy all the uses we might put it to—
and this situation is worse in some places than in others.)

Why do some people think other people waste water? What do we really mean when
we say someone is "wasting" water? (People who accuse others of wasting water think
that water is more valuable for other purposes—other, that is, than the purpose for
which the "wasteful" person is using it. What we really mean when we say someone is
wasting water is that he or she is using water in a way that we think is not valuable,
based on our tastes and preferences and beliefs about water availability.)
Pose a series of questions regarding changes in people's behavior. Ask:

Suppose someone you don't know has a $100 ticket to a playoff game you'd really like
to see, and he doesn't go to the game. Is he wasting the ticket? (All you really know is
that, in this instance, the person must have placed a lower value on using his ticket than
on doing something else. It's because you place a higher value on using the ticket than
he did that you call his actions wasteful.)

Display Visual 2. A farmer in grows rice in the desert in California. Rice is grown in
flooded fields. The water the farmer uses to flood the fields is brought in by a huge,
federal irrigation system. Much of the water evaporates rapidly; the arid weather
conditions in the California desert regions dry it up. What do we know about the
farmer who uses water in this way—a way that many people consider wasteful? (We
really don't know anything about the farmer as a person. We don't know if he is
smart or ignorant, what his attitude is about the environment, or whether he is rich or
poor. All we can say with any certainty is that he must believe that water is readily
available to him. We can also be pretty sure that he doesn't have to give up much to
get water; if he did, he probably would do something that uses less water. In other words,
he probably has pretty good reasons for choosing to use water in this way.)
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
Why does the farmer grow rice instead of crops more suited to the environment of this
area? (Because the opportunity cost for him to get water is extremely low. Since it's
easy to get water, he chooses to grow rice—probably because he makes more money
growing rice than he could make growing other crops. In fact, Texas and California,
both very arid regions, are major rice producers.)

Which of the following is most likely to be true about the farmer's choice to grow rice?
o He is likely to ignore protesters from the "Keep Our Canals Full"
committee. (Probably true.)
o The farmer's father grew rice, and that's all he knows how to do. (We do
not know.)
o The farmer isn't very smart. (We do not know.) The farmer is generally a
wasteful person. (We do not know.)
o The farmer doesn’t stay awake at night worrying about getting enough
water to flood the fields. (Probably true.)
o The farmer probably makes more money growing and selling rice than he
pays for the water he uses to grow it. (Probably true.)
o The farmer grew up near a lake and likes having water around. (We do
not know.)
o The farmer is likely to be responsive to a local government campaign to "Shut
the Floodgates—Eat More Wheat!" (We do not know.)
o If getting water to grow rice were more expensive, the farmer would
consider doing something different. (Probably true.)
15. Why would people often use something precious like water for ordinary purposes, and
why doesn't it do any good for us to scold them about it or ask them to change their
behavior? (People's choices depend on the circumstances. Specifically, people's tastes,
preferences, and individual desires—and their perceptions of supply or how easily they can
acquire something—determine how much value they place on the resource in question. As
long as water is cheap and easy for people to get, they won't exercise a great deal of care in
using it, and it won't make much difference if we ask them to. We can change their behavior by
changing (a) their tastes, preferences, or individual desires (which is what environmental groups
and public information campaigns ordinarily try to do), or (b) the ease with which they can
get more water (by raising the price, or issuing ration coupons, for example).
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Assessment Answer Guide
Distribute Activity 3 to assess student learning.
Determine whether each of the pairs of resources is like diamonds and water, and explain
why.
a. Gold-Air. (Yes. Gold is relatively scarce and it comes at a high price, but it is low in
use-value. Air is in great supply, with a low price, but it is very high in use-value.)
b. Oxygen-Sand. (No. While oxygen is valuable, both resources are abundant and very
low in price.)
c. Gold-Silver. (No. Both are relatively scarce, high in price, and have a low usevalue.)
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Visual 1:
The Diamond – Water Paradox
Even though water is essential for life and diamonds are not, water
is cheap and diamonds are expensive.
Why ?
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Script: The Real Story of Romeo and Juliet
(When the play opens, Juliet is sitting on a chair by herself, crying softly, her hands covering her
face. Then she looks up.)
Juliet:
Romeo, Romeo, where are you, Romeo?
Romeo:
Here, my dearest love. I come at your calling. (Romeo runs, tripping, into the
room, and startles Juliet who jumps up.) What’s wrong?
Juliet:
Oh, Romeo, how nice to see you. I have just been talking to Jane, and she said
that John told her that Kim said that Keisha said you told Maria you weren't sure you really, truly
love me! Oh, Romeo, my heart is breaking.
Romeo :
Oh, no, my dearest sweet! It isn't so. That maybe was true last week, or at least I
told Jamal that I was thinking about it, but I made him promise not to tell anyone, and he said he
only told, like, Jenna but that he told her not to tell anyone. (Romeo tries to sneak his arm around
Juliet to comfort her but she shrugs him off.)
But it doesn't matter! Because it's not true! I do love you! I love you more than life itself.
Prithee, dearest Juliet, don't cry. Tell me what I can do to prove my love!
(Juliet pulls away and goes back to sit on her chair, thinking.)
Juliet:
Oh, boo hoo. (She fakes a cry) I don't know. Maybe you could, like, go on a quest
or something. Isn't that what lovers do?
Romeo:
Of course! I will go on a quest. I will spend my entire fortune and allowance if I
have to, but I will search the four corners of the earth and bring you the most precious thing I can
find.
Will that prove my love? Promise me that you'll await my return.
Juliet Oh, Romeo, I'll wait; I promise I'll wait. I'll hold my breath until you return—or at least
for a real long time—for you mean more to me than life itself.
(Juliet takes a huge breath and puffs out her cheeks. Romeo runs from the room. Juliet struggles
to hold her breath).
Anon, a message comes flying into the room for Juliet. Romeo has thrown it through the door,
and Juliet rushes to pick it up. As she opens it, she lets out her breath and goes back to her chair
to read the note.
Juliet:
Whew. About time. Let's see. It says, "Oh, breathe, my love, breathe, for I have
foundyou the most precious thing on Earth. I come forsooth to bring you proof of my love."
Oh, my Romeo (clasping the note to her heart). You DO love me.
Copyright © Foundation for Teaching Economics and Politics and Environment Research Center, 2000, 2010. Permission
granted to reproduce for instructional purposes
31
(Juliet holds out her hand and looks at it.) I just know he is bringing me the most beautiful and
rarest of diamonds to adorn my little finger.
Romeo:
I'm back, my love! (Romeo springs into the room with a flourish and, falls to one
knee in front of Juliet, holding up a small paper cup.)
And I have brought you proof of my love. Only the very air itself is more precious
than the gift I offer to win your love again.
Juliet:
(Takes cup, looks inside and then turns angrily to Romeo.) Oh, Romeo, how could
you? As if! I hate you and I'll never speak to you again!
(Juliet throws the cup of water in Romeo's face and runs out the door, crying.)
Romeo:
Oh, woe is me. What did I do wrong? (Exits, shaking his head sadly.)
Copyright © Foundation for Teaching Economics and Politics and Environment Research Center, 2000, 2010. Permission
granted to reproduce for instructional purposes
32
Copyright © Foundation for Teaching Economics and Politics and Environment Research Center, 2000, 2010. Permission granted to reproduce for
instructional purposes
33
Visual 2
Why would a farmer in the desert region of California grow
rice, a crop is grown in flooded paddies?
 What do we know about the farmer? Is each of the following
statements about the farmer:
o Likely to be true
o Likely to be false
o We don’t have enough information to know
 He is likely to ignore protesters from the "Keep Our Canals
Full" committee.
 The farmer's father grew rice, and that's all he knows how to do.
 The farmer isn't very smart.

The farmer is generally a wasteful person.
 The farmer doesn’t stay awake at night worrying about getting
enough water to flood the fields.
 The farmer probably makes more money growing and selling rice
than he pays for the water he uses to grow it.
 The farmer grew up near a lake and likes having water around.
 The farmer is likely to be responsive to a local government campaign
to "Shut the Floodgates—Eat More Wheat!"
 If getting water to grow rice were more expensive, the farmer
would consider doing something different.
Copyright © Foundation for Teaching Economics and Politics and Environment Research Center, 2000, 2010. Permission
granted to reproduce for instructional purposes
34
Visual 3: Assessment
Directions: For each pair of resources below, answer two questions:
1. Gold-Air
2. Oxygen-Sand
3. Gold-Silver
A. Is it like the diamond/water example in the lesson?
B. If yes, explain how it is similar. If no, explain how it is different.
Copyright © Foundation for Teaching Economics and Politics and Environment Research Center, 2000, 2010. Permission
granted to reproduce for instructional purposes