Pottsgrove School District
Unit Planning Organizer
Subjects
Economics
Grade / Course 12/Econ&Soc
Unit of Study
Economic Systems
Unit Type(s)
Topical
Pacing
Skills-based
Dominant Focus: Introduction to Economics; Economic Systems:
traditional, free market, command plan; American free enterprise
Thematic
Weeks: 7 weeks
Current Priority State Standards and/or Common Core Standards
List the priority standards (written out in bold) that will be taught during this unit of study.
CAPITALIZE the SKILLS and underline the important concepts for all priority standards addressed in this unit.
6.3.12.A: EVALUATE the costs and benefits of government decisions to provide public goods and services.
6.1.12.B: EVALUATE the economic reasoning behind a choice. Evaluate effective allocation of resources for the production of goods
and services.
6.2.12.E: EVALUATE the health of an economy (local, regional, national, global) using economic indicators.
CC.WHST.12.9 DRAW evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Current Supporting State Standards and/or Common Core Standards
List the supporting standards (written out in non-bold) that will be taught during this unit of study. Supporting standards should not be unwrapped.
6.1.12.A: Predict the long-term consequences of decisions made because of scarcity.
6.1.12.D: Predict how changes in incentives may affect the choices made by individuals, businesses, communities, and nations.
6.3.12.B: Assess the government's role in regulating and stabilizing the state and national economy.
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Priority
Standards
“Unwrapped” Concepts
“Unwrapped” Skills
(Students need to know)
(Students need to be able to do)
Ex: 8.12.U.D
May also include concepts in unit but not
specified in standard
Ex: Verb (concept)
Bloom’s II
Taxonomy
Ex: 4 - Analyzing
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Costs and benefits of
government decisions to provide
public goods and services
Assess(cost and benefits)
6.3.12.A
Role of the Government in the Free
Enterprise System
Defend(public goods and services)
5-Evaluating
Can the student justify
a stand or decision?
5-Evaluating
6.1.12.B
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Economic reasoning behind a
choice
Debate
Can the student justify
a stand or decision?
5-Evaluating
6.2.12.E
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Health of an economy
Determine or debate
Can the student justify
a stand or decision?
CC.WHST.12.9
Evidence from informational texts
Draw
Essential Questions
Essential Questions are engaging, open-ended questions that educators use to spark
initial student interest in learning the content of the unit about to commence.
Identify the Essential Questions that will be used throughout this unit to focus your
instruction and assessment. For consideration, ask yourself the following about each
essential question:
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2
3
4
Is this question written in student friendly language?
Can this question be answered with one of the Big Ideas?
Does the question lead the students to discovery of the Big Ideas?
Does the question go beyond who, what, where, when and ask the students to
explain how and why?
1. What is scarcity? Why are all resources always scarce?
Corresponding Big Ideas
Big ideas are what you want your students to discover on their own as a result of
instruction and learning activities.
Identify the Big Ideas for each corresponding essential question.
The goal is for students to effectively be able to respond to the teacher’s essential
questions with the big ideas, stated in their
1. Scarcity implies limited quantities of resources to meet unlimited
wants. Resources are always scarce because sooner or later, a limit
is reached. You cannot have a an endless supply of everything.
Economics is about solving the problem of scarcity.
2. What is a trade-off? Explain how people make trade-offs by
thinking at the margin.
2. Trade-offs are all the alternatives that we give up whenever we
choose one course of action over another. Thinking at the margin is
when you decide how much more or less to do.
3. What is an economic system? Explain the positives and negatives
of the three main economic systems. (CR)
3. Economic System is the method used by a society to produce and
distribute goods and services. Answers will vary: Traditional,
Market, Command, Mixed.
4. What is the free market? Identify the advantages of a free market
4. An economic systems that are based on voluntary exchanges
markets. In a free market economy, individuals and businesses use
economy.
markets to exchange money and products. Individuals and privately
owned businesses own the factors of production, make what they
want, and buy what they want. They answer the 3 key economic
questions of what to produce, how to produce it, and who consumes
that which is produced. Advantages(pg 32): 1. Economic efficiency 2.
Economic freedom 3. Economic growth 4. Offer a wider variety of
goods and services than any other system, because producers have
incentives to meet consumers’ desires. Consumers decide what gets
produced (called consumer sovereignty)
5. What is a centrally-planned economy? Identify the problems of a
centrally planned economy.
5. In a centrally-planned economy, the central government, rather
than the individual producers and consumers in markets, answers
the key economic questions of production and consumption.
Problems: Poor quality, serious shortages of non-priority goods and
services, and diminishing production. Greatest disadvantage of
centrally planned economies is that their performance almost
always falls short of the ideals upon which the system is built.
Cannot meet consumers’ needs or wants; workers lack any incentive
to work hard; these systems also do not reward innovation, actively
discouraging any kind of change; sacrifice individual freedoms in
order to pursue societal goals.
6. What is a mixed economic system? Where does America fall on a
continuum between centrally-planned and free market economic
systems?
A mixture of economic systems. Most contemporary mixed
economies blend the market with government intervention or
involvement, in the marketplace. USA: The U.S. has a free enterprise
economy but the government intervenes to keep order, provide
vital services, and to promote the general welfare.
7. What is American free enterprise? Describe the role of the
government is the American free enterprise.
Basic principles of Free Enterprise: Several key characteristics; profit
motive, open opportunity, legal equality, private property rights,
free contract, voluntary exchange, and competition. Role of
Government: Carry out its constitutional responsibilities to protect
rights, contracts, and other business activities in our free enterprise
system. As well as protection from problems that affect us all, such
as air pollution or unsafe foods or drugs
8. What is a business cycle? What are the differences between
macroeconomics and microeconomics?
A business cycle is a period of macroeconomic expansion followed
by a period of contraction or decline. Macroeconomics is the study
of the behavior and decision making of entire economies. Economy
as a whole. Microeconomics is the study of the economic behavior
and decision making of small units, such as individuals, families,
and small businesses.
9. What is a public good? Evaluate how the government allocates
resources.
A public good is a shared good or service for which it would be
inefficient or impractical, (1) to make consumers pay individually
or (2) exclude nonpayers. The Government encourages the creation
of positive externalities (education) and tries to limit negative
externalities (acid rain)
10. What is a safety net? Describe the main programs through
which the government redistributes income.
A safety net is designed to help the very young, the very old, the
sick, the poor, and the disabled. Various federal, state, and local
government programs help raise people’s standard of living, their
level of economic well-being as measured by the ability to purchase
goods and services they need and want. Main programs for
redistributing income: 1. TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families 2. Social Security 3. Unemployment insurance 4. Workers’
compensation
Plan for Instruction
Make connections between learning experiences and teaching strategies.
Engaging Learning Experiences
(Authentic Performance Tasks)
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Task #1: Vocabulary association
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Task #2: Deserted Island
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Task #3: American Free enterprise
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Researched-based Effective Teaching Strategies
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Performance tasks
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Jig-saw
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Think-pair-share
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Engaging Learning Experiences for Honors
(Authentic Performance Tasks)
Researched-based Effective Teaching Strategies
for Honors
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Common Assessments
Note to Curriculum Designers:
Review grade-or course-specific state standardized assessments for the types of questions directly related to the “unwrapped” Priority Standards' concepts and skills in
focus for this unit of study.
2 Identify the vocabulary used and frequency of these questions.
3 Compare/contrast this information with the “unwrapped” concepts and skills listed above to determine how closely the two are aligned.
4 Create the Post Assessment using the Common Formative Assessment Template (Appendix A).
5 Create the Pre Assessment. Decide whether the pre-assessment will be aligned (directly matched to post-assessment but with fewer questions) or mirrored (exact
number and type of questions as post-assessment.
Create Informal Progress Monitoring Checks. Create short, ungraded “checks for student understanding” for the educator to administer throughout the unit of study that are
directly aligned to the post-assessment questions (selected-, short-, extended-response, and/or performance-based) and that coincide with learning progressions—the “building
block chunks” of instruction.
1
Post Assessment:
Pre Assessment:
Informal Progress Monitoring Checks:
Unit Vocabulary
Tier 3
Tier 2
Literary Terms
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Scarcity
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Need
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Physical Capital
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Want
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Human Capital
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Economics
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Entrepreneurs
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Goods
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Trade-offs
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Services
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Opportunity Costs
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Shortage
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Thinking at the Margin
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Land
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Underutilization
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Labor
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Efficiency
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Capital
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Factor payments
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Economic System
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safety net
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Patriotism
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Traditional economy
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Standard of Living
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Market economy
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Specialization
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Centrally planned economy
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household
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Command Economy
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firm
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Mixed economy
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Profit
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Markey
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self-interest
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Factor market
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Competition
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Product market
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Socialism
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Incentive
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Communism
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Invisible hand
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consumer sovereignty
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Collective
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Authoritarian
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private property
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privatize
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technology
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heavy industry
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work ethic
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Laissez faire
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welfare
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Free enterprise
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cash transfers
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continuum
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transition
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Profit motive
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open opportunity
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private property rights
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free contract
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voluntary exchange
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interest group
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public disclosure laws
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public interest
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macroeconomics
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mircoeconomics
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GDP
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business cycle
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public good
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public sector
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private sector
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free rider
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market failure
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externality
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poverty threshold
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in-kind benefits
Instructional Resources and
Materials
Technology
Program / Text
Teacher Created
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