Economics video contest Fall 2012

The national Council for Economic Education is holding a contest for grades k-12 for the best video on the topic: "What should the next President do to improve the economy?"

Everyone's got an opinion, and the Council for Economic Education wants to hear from your students! This election season, CEE is holding a video contest asking students in kindergarten through 12th grade, via their teachers, for the best economic advice they can give our next President. Teachers should record one student, or a group of students, answering the question "What Should the Next President do to Improve the Economy?"
One winner will be chosen by CEE Facebook fans ("Viewers' Choice") and at least one winner will be chosen by one or more economists selected as judges by CEE ("Economists' Choice"). Prizes include a $500 American Express gift card for each teacher winner, and $25 iTunes gift cards for the student(s) featured in the winning videos.
Video Submission Period
Opens: Wednesday, September 12, 2012, 9:00 a.m. EST
Closes: Tuesday, October 2, 2012, 11:59 p.m. EST
Public Voting Period
Starts: Wednesday, October 3, 2012, 9:00 a.m. EST
Ends: Thursday, October 18, 2012, 11:59 p.m. EST
Complete rules, a sample video and FAQ are available here.
We look forward to hearing what your students have to say! Good luck.

Common Sense Economics

Common Sense Economics is a website with many free resources for economics teachers.  It's designed to accompany a text by James Gwartney, Richard Stroup, Dwight Lee, and Tawni Ferrarini but it would work well with any text.

It has practice questions, reading guides, and more on: 
(1) Twelve Key Elements of Economics
(2) Seven Major Sources of Economic Progress
(3) Economic Progress and the Role of Government
(4) Twelve Key Elements of Practical Personal Finance.

http://www.commonsenseeconomics.com/

Language of Business

The University of Texas at Austin presents LINGO: the Language of Business, a series of YouTube videos illustrating economic and business concepts.  Many of the terms are critical for understanding current events: Debt Ceiling, Systemic Risk, Sovereign Debt, Moral Hazard.  The videos are short, lively, and accurate.

https://texasenterprise.org/series/lingo

Internet resources for education

Box of Tricks provides A – Z Internet Resources for Education. While not specifically about economics, this list links to dozens of free online resources that can be used in the classroom.


http://www.boxoftricks.net/internet-resouces-for-education/

History of Money

The Philadelphia Fed has a really nice series of publications on US history and the importance of money. They are available as free pdf files or as full-color printed booklets. Each publication is illustrated with photos, drawings, and paintings of historic objects and places There are lesson plan booklets to accompany most of the student books.

Titles include:
Benjamin Franklin and the Birth of a Paper Money Economy
The First Bank of the United States
The Second bank of the United States


http://www.philadelphiafed.org/publications/economic-education/

Unchanging Laws of Money

"Flipping Burgers to Flipping Millions" lists these seven Unchanging Laws of Money

1. Save... and begin saving early.
2. Control your expenses.
3. Make your money multiply....Invest.
4. Guard your money against loss.
5. Make your home an investment.
6. Ensure a future income for yourself and your family....by developing a career, improving yourself, and investing.
7. Work and study to increase your ability to earn.

This short personal finance book by Bernard Kelly stresses the importance of saving. The author's goal is to inspire people, particularly young people, to save enough money early so they can gain financial freedom.


Flipping Burgers to Flipping Millions
by Bernard Kelly
2011

European Union lesson plans

The European Union has free downloadable lesson plans on a wide variety of topics, including a substantial number of economic lessons.

The high school lesson plans include PowerPoints and pdf lessons on topics such as the euro, immigration, the environment, and the single market.
http://www.eurunion.org/eu/European-Union-Lesson-Plans-Secondary-Level.html


The K-12 lesson plans include geography, language, and social studies (including economic topics like currency, environment, and prices.)
http://euce.org/education/k12plans.php


The Teachers Corner organizes lessons by age group:
http://europa.eu/teachers-corner/index_en.htm

Monetary Policy Game

"So you want to be in charge of monetary policy? Think you have what is takes to steer our country's central bank? See how it works by taking charge of a simulated economy."

The San Francisco Fed has an online game to explore monetary policy. The player sets interest rates to try to keep unemployment and inflation at their target levels. Assorted shocks, like a tax cut or an oil crisis, create turmoil and the Fed can respond by raising or lowering interest rates. A round takes about 2 minutes to complete and the game can be replayed (different shocks will appear in different rounds.)

The game also has a "learn more" section that discusses the Fed's policy tools, has a series of short videos on past policy, and includes a glossary of economic terms.


http://www.frbsf.org/education/activities/chairman/index.html

Thanks to Philip Mulder for sharing this resource.

Economics and Art Webpage

Purdue University's Michael Watts is developing a website on using art to teach economics.

https://intra.krannert.purdue.edu/sites/econandart/Pages/Home.aspx

Several slideshows are already online, including: "Natural Resources and Agriculture," "Capital Resources and Technology," and "Money, Banking, and Financial Crhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifises." Each slideshow uses paintings and drawings to illustrate the economic concepts. The last slide of each show presents a list of discussion questions relating the pictures and concepts.

More slideshows are planned in coming months, as well as more information on the concepts, artists, and individual artworks.

Music for the recession

Marketplace reports on music for the current economy.

"Musician Ry Cooder explores a number of genres on his new album, which was inspired by the current economy and the protest songs of the past. This is an interesting take on our current economic situation."

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/08/29/pm-ry-cooder-on-the-protest-songs-of-today/


Thanks to Katy Gustafson for sharing this.

Economics Video Contest

Investing In Michigan HS Student Video Competition

The Michigan Council on Economic Education has a new competition for Michigan high school students. The contest is to create a short video (less than 3 minutes) on an economic topic. Videos may be made by students working in teams or as individuals. The contest is free to enter and the top prize is $300. The deadline is April 15, 2012


The general announcement is at:
http://www.mceeonline.org/programs/programs-list/investing-in-michigan-video-competition/

There’s a pdf with detailed rules and entry forms at:
http://www.mceeonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/MCEE-Video-Contest-Rules.pdf


Economic Topics for the contest:

1.1.1 Scarcity, Choice, or Opportunity Cost
1.2.2 Analyze how prices are signals provide signals to buyers and sellers in a competitive market
1.3.1 Law of Supply
1.3.2 Law of Demand
1.3.3 Price, Equilibrium, or Elasticity
1.4.4 Explain functions of government in a market economy including providing public goods, services, creation of currency, establish property rights, the enforcement of contracts, correcting externalities, or market failures.
2.1.2 Circular flow and national economy
2.1.3 Money supply, Inflation, or Recession
2.1.7 Economic Indicators
2.2.1 Federal Government and Macroeconomic goals-Stable prices, low unemployment, economic growth.
2.2.3 Fiscal policy
2.2.4 Federal Reserve or Monetary Policy
3.1.1 Major Economic Systems, Command, Market, Traditional, Mixed
3.2.1 Absolute or Comparative Advantage
3.2.2 Trade Organizations or Trade Agreements
3.2.3 Exchange Rates
4.1.2 Marginal Benefit and Cost

The contest uses TeacherTube (also free) to avoid problems that some schools have with YouTube. Entries should be tagged with the code MCEE2012.

Entry forms should be sent to:
Michigan Council on Economic Education
Dr. David Dieterle
41500 Gardenbrook, Walsh College
Novi, Michigan 48375

Prizes

First place: $300
Second place: $200
Third place: $100
PLUS 8 “VIDEO of MERIT” winners

Please feel free to forward this information to teachers or students who may be interested

European debt graphic

The BBC has a great interactive chart illustrating the European Debt interdependence.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15748696

The chart summarizes a lot of complex data into an easy to grasp visual.




thanks to Nigel Willmott for pointing to this resource on the CEE discussion forum.

Financing a College Education lesson

Mathematics Teacher shares a favorite lesson on Financing a College Education

"During the College Project, students investigate a college of their choice to determine the true cost of attendance (tuition, room and board, books, student fees, travel expenses, fun money, etc.) We use recent growth rates to predict the increase in tuition for each year that they will be in college and come up with a grand total, which is always a staggering amount. Next, each student creates a plan to determine how to cover the costs: parental contribution, summer jobs, work-study, scholarships, loans. Students make a formal presentation to their parents, outlining the costs and their plan. They also submit a paper detailing their calculations and create a poster."

A complete description is available at http://www.nctm.org/publications/article.aspx?id=30924

The Backpage: My Favorite Lesson
Financing a College Education
Laura M. Crowley Edited by Jodie A. Miller
Mathematics Teacher
October 2011, Volume 105, Issue 3, Page 240

Thanks to Marketplace for spotlighting this lesson.

Third World Farmer game

3rd World Farmer is a free online simulation game. Players make decisions on planting crops & purchasing tools & buildings. Unpredictable events-- drought, fire, disease-- are common. The goals are to survive and to improve the family's material well-being. Both are challenging.

The interface is easy to use & the game itself is fairly engaging.



From the developers' press release:

"3rd World Farmer is a new kind of game. An experiment in the genre of Serious Games, it aims at simulating the real-world mechanisms that cause and sustain poverty in 3rd World countries.

In the game, the player gets to manage an African farm, and is soon confronted with the often difficult choices that poverty and conflict necessitate. We find this kind of experience efficient at making the issues relevant to people, because players tend to invests their hopes in a game character whose fate depends on him. We aim at making the player "experience" the injustices, rather than being told about them, so as to stimulate a deeper and more personal reflection on the topics.

We think the game has the potential to be an eye-opener to people who have become accustomed to the ordinary means of communicating third world desperation. Our aim is to have everybody play the game, reflect, discuss and act on it. The game is well suited to start off discussions about 3rd World issues, so we also encourage teachers to use it in their classes"

Play the game: www.3rdworldfarmer.com

Read more about it at: www.gamesforchange.org/main/gameprof/663

Visualizing unemployment

The American Observer shows the dynamics of unemployment during this recession:
The Decline: The Geography of a Recession




http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html

Copyright curriculum materials

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a free online curriculum for teaching about copyright.

from their webpage:

"The lesson plan concludes with a mock trial that tests the students' understanding of copyright and its limitations and encourages them to consider the positions of each party involved.

Unit Goals

* Educate students about copyright law, including the concepts of fair use, free speech, and the public domain.
* Explore the relationship between copyright law and innovation, showing how the courts and lawmakers have struggled to build a legal framework to both compensate artists and encourage innovative uses of creative works and new technologies.
* Help students understand their legal rights and responsibilities with respect to copyright and technology use.

Objectives for Students

* Critical and creative thinking: brainstorming, analyzing historical and contemporary sources, and questioning group and individual assumptions.
* Social skills: collaborating with peers.
* Communication: participating in group discussions, debates, class projects, and role-play; demonstrating comprehension by commenting (orally and in writing) on the material clearly and effectively.
* Research: collecting, organizing, and synthesizing data from various sources (scholastic articles, commercial news sources, Internet, video/film, music, art, and literature)."

http://www.teachingcopyright.org/curriculum/hs

Banking crisis

"This American Life", from Chicago Public Radio, has an excellent show explaining the current banking crisis. They illustrate it using a dollhouse loan that goes bad:

"Mark to market, that's another phrase you might have heard. And it applies to exactly the situation Adam is in right now. He's got a dollhouse on his books for 100, but if he had to sell it now, he could only get 50 - that's the market price, what he could get right now. Marking it to market means Adam would have to enter the market price - 50 dollars - or 20 dollars - or whatever it really is - into his books.

And the bankers have all been saying 'please don't make me do that,' because if you do, I'll be declaring bankruptcy."

You can hear the podcast or read a complete transcript of the program at their website.

The Credit of Crisis visualized

Here's a clear explanation of the foundations of the financial crisis by Jonathan Jarvis

Saving

Saving Money in Plain English is a simple introduction to savings and compound interest.

Financial advice for uncertain times

Vanguard advises stock investors to avoid panic.

1. Market timing is a losing strategy.

You may be thinking you should sell now and get back into stocks later when the market "settles down" and the economy starts to recover. But this approach—called market timing—can lead to disappointing returns. In effect, it puts you at risk of selling low and buying high.

2: Investors have been rewarded for taking risk.

The steep and sudden stock market drops we've seen recently are certainly unsettling and may have done serious damage to your portfolio. But this very risk is why, over the long term, stocks have outperformed bonds or cash investments. "To take the risk of investing in stocks, people have to see a higher return potential than they would get from a typically safer asset," said Mr. Bennyhoff. "Taking risk isn't always rewarded in the short term. But, historically, risk has generally been rewarded over the long term in the form of higher average returns."

3: Playing it "safe" can lead to a shortfall.

Right about now, fleeing stocks for the safety of U.S. Treasury bills or an FDIC-insured certificate of deposit seems very appealing. For your short-term financial needs, these cash investments can be good choices. But, they may not be suitable for your long-term goals—like saving for a comfortable retirement—because the returns are likely to be too low.

Remember, your investments will need to outpace inflation over time, otherwise you'll lose purchasing power. Historically, it's been stocks that have helped investors compensate for inflation by delivering higher average annual returns than cash investments or bonds.

4: Emotional decisions often lead to regrets.

In times of market turmoil, it's difficult to take a long-term view and resist the urge to react to the latest big swing in the financial markets. Our instincts tell us we have to do something now. But Mr. Bennyhoff suggests staying calm can help you avoid making moves you later regret.

"Generally speaking, it tends to be a very bad idea to make emotional decisions in times that are already emotionally charged," he said. "If the market had a bad day yesterday and you come in today and sell, that doesn't make up for yesterday's losses. Actually, what you're doing is just capturing your losses."

Read the entire article at
http://www.vanguard.com/us/VanguardViewsArticlePublic?ArticleJSP=/freshness/News_and_Views/news_ALL_reaction_10092008_ALL.jsp