Market Wars

In this unit on markets students will learn about demand, supply, pricing, market characteristics, market failures and more through a series of interactive, story-driven activities. It culminates in an escape room activity where students  use their knowledge of the "Market Wars" to free rebels from the grip of the empire!

Unit Guide Everything below in one single Google doc, complete with step by step lesson plans for each activity.

PowerPoint Presentations

While these presentations will technically function in Google Slides, they won't work well. Download the file as a PowerPoint and run it from your Desktop for best results!

Demand - fully animated graphs, woo! A discussion of demand with a focus on the various ways to shift a demand curve.

Supply - purposefully similar presentation to the one above, just looking at supply instead.

Pricing & Equilibrium - Watch the invisible hand do its magic! Missing some fun videos, thanks Congress! 

Market Characteristics - A series of mini-activities and very brief notes about the various characteristics of a market economy such as property rights and competition.

Lessons and Activities

1. Production Possibilities Frontier - Understanding that businesses make choices on what to produce is a key point to making sense of how supply of a product can change (because they produce something else!) in a market. Let's start here.

2. Demand Intro (PearDeck) - an adapted lesson to introduce demand featuring Toy Story 3, greeting cards and a chocolate auction!

3. Economic Analysis: Conspicuous Consumption - The law of demand doesn't always apply, sometimes quantity demanded can rise along with price. Let's analyze how with our special guest 50 Cent!

4. Demand Shift Practice (The Bachelorette) - short practice on shifting demand curves.

5. History x Econ: The Gold Rush - Prices at the Gold Rush were way out of balance. Was it a supply or demand problem?

6. The Marriage of Supply and Demand - Nothing can keep these two crazy kids apart. Let's be wedding planners to help them find eternal bliss! Here's the story file which contains the story setup and musical interludes. Here's the presentation file which contains the honeymoon photo slideshow! I use this piece as a fun transition to the closing activity.

7. Is Disneyland too... Cheap? - What better way to understand price and equilibrium than by overturning common knowledge? (And visiting Disneyland of course.)

8. Supply and the Labor Market (PearDeck) - Does it really matter what you want to be when you grow up? Great question. Let's investigate!

9. Minimum Wage Debate - Debate the economics behind raising the minimum wage, but try to avoid using the F word. ("Fair" of course.)

10. What in the World is Inflation? - Inflation is all the rage these days! Is it a supply issue or a demand issue? Let's have an auction and find out!

11. Market Fails 1: Public Goods and Externalities (PearDeck) - Children's stories, video and interactive games help students understand how market failures can result in the over or underproduction of goods and services.

12. Market Fails 2: The Imperfects (PearDeck) - play a game without knowing the rules then learn about monopolies and oligopolies!

13. EA: Monopoly! - Is Call of Duty too big to sell? Students read an article about Microsoft's attempt to purchase Activision in 2023 and the accompanying challenge by the FTC on anti-competitive grounds.

14. Economic Inquiry: Going Green - two stories, one fictional, one sadly not, to show the impact of market failures on humans (and Seussian creatures.)

15. Escape from Batuu - Two Jedi are trapped and trying to escape. In this breakout activity students solve a series of puzzles based on demand and supply to help them!

16. *NEW* Swiftonomics - A case study in a market gone wrong as students examine when Taylor Swift tickets faced such a major shortage and price spike in 2023.

17. CYOA Learning Menu - a learning menu where students choose from a series of activities to demonstrate their understand of the unit. 

Media

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The Profit (S2, E14) Coopersburg Sports (Runtime 42 mins) - Competition is one of the characteristics of a free market. How does a small, family-run business compete with a huge company? We're often told they can't. Coopersburg Sports faces that very problem. Can they innovate and compete or will they be run out of town? Study Guide with Questions