This
information has been taken directly from the Accelerate
U - Standards and Resource Guides (with approval) from the K-12
Education, NEW YORK STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT site. No information
in this document has been changed.
Learning Standards for Social
Studies at Three Levels
Standard 4: Economics
- Elementary
Students will use a variety
of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of how
the United States and other societies develop economic systems and
associated institutions to allocate scarce resources, how major
decision-making units function in the United States and other national
economies, and how an economy solves the scarcity problem through
market and nonmarket mechanisms.
1. The study of economics requires an understanding
of major economic concepts and systems, the principles of economic
decision making, and the interdependence of economies and economic
systems throughout the world.
Students:
- know some ways individuals and groups attempt
to satisfy their basic needs and wants by utilizing scarce resources
- explain how people's wants exceed their
limited resources and that this condition defines scarcity
- know that scarcity requires individuals
to make choices and that these choices involve costs
- study about how the availability and distribution
of resources is important to a nation's economic growth
- understand how societies organize their
economies to answer three fundamental economic questions; What
goods and services shall be produced and in what quantities? How
shall goods and services be produced? For whom shall goods and
services be produced?
- investigate how production, distribution,
exchange, and consumption of goods and services are economic decisions
with which all societies and nations must deal.
This is evident, for example, when students:
- role-play a family or group situation in
which group members make an economic decision about whether to
purchase a new car, plan a family or group trip, or invest the
money
- discuss the differences between capital,
human, and natural resources and classify pictures of each resource
type in the appropriate category
- use map symbols to locate and identify natural
resources found in different regions of the United States and
in other countries in the Western Hemisphere
- identify several personal as well as family
buying choices, list their associated costs and benefits, and
explain how and why particular decisions are/have been made; clarify
how prices and one's own values influence individual and family
decision making
- describe the characteristics of at least
two of the following economic units: a family, a worker, a small
business, a labor union, a large corporation, a government agency
(local, state, or national); identify the kinds of economic choice
each economic unit must make and explain the positive and negative
result of at least one choice
- organize information based on interviews
of a laborer, a service provider, a small business owner, a banker,
a business executive, an elected government official, or a government
employee to identify how individuals produce and distribute goods
and services, why individuals make the kinds of decisions they
make, and how individuals describe the effects of their decisions
on others
observe economic characteristics of places; draw
conclusions about how people in families, schools, and communities
all over the world must depend on others to help them meet their
needs and wants.
2. Economics requires the development and application
of the skills needed to make informed and well-reasoned economic decisions
in daily and national life.
Students:
- locate economic information, using card
catalogues, computer databases, indices, and library guides
- collect economic information from textbooks,
standard references, newspapers, periodicals, and other primary
and secondary sources
- make hypotheses about economic issues and
problems, testing, refining, and eliminating hypotheses and developing
new ones when necessary
- present economic information by developing
charts, tables, diagrams, and simple graphs.
This is evident, for example, when students:
- collect and discuss newspaper articles about
economic issues and problems affecting their community, region,
or the State
- design a display board showing how they
might acquire and spend income
- research a local industry to determine what
it produces, how it makes this product, its distribution system,
and how the finished product is marketed
- analyze a set of graphs or tables showing
selected imports and exports for the United States to make hypotheses
about what might happen if these imports or exports increase or
decrease in value
use a variety of textbooks and news articles
to identify a list of potential economic problems or issues facing
the United States or other nations in the Western Hemisphere. Working
in groups, brainstorm a list of possible solutions, the potential
effects of these solutions, and rank order the solutions in terms
of their likelihood of success.
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