Economics: goods, services, choices, and trade (grade 4) · lesson

Incentives

💡 A reward pushes people to do something, and a cost pushes them to stop.

An incentive is something that makes people want to act a certain way.

A positive incentive is a reward. Paying kids 5 cents for each can they recycle is a positive incentive.

A negative incentive is a cost, like a fine. A library fine for late books makes people return books on time.

🧠 Let's work it out

Ask: is this a reward or a cost?
A reward makes people do more of something.
A cost makes them do less.
Most people try to avoid a fine, so they bring books back on time.

What do you think comes next?

incentive: a reward or cost that changes what people do
fine: money you must pay for breaking a rule

Natural resources

💡 Natural resources come from nature, and each place makes goods from what its land has.

A natural resource is something from nature that people use. Water, soil, trees, and gold are natural resources. Things people build, like hotels and tractors, are not.

Colorado's mountains held gold and silver. Its rivers water crops. Its plains have flat land and grass.

Colorado has no ocean. So it has no ocean ports and no seashells to sell.

🧠 Let's work it out

Ask: did nature make it, or did people?
A river is from nature.
A ski lift was built by workers.
Then match land to goods.
Flat land grows wheat.
Grass feeds cattle.

What do you think comes next?

natural resource: something from nature that people use

Opportunity cost

💡 The opportunity cost of a choice is the best thing you gave up to make it.

You can't do everything at once. When you choose one thing, you give up another.

The best thing you give up is called the opportunity cost.

🧠 Let's work it out

List what you could do.
Diego can ski, or he can work and earn $20.
He picks skiing.
The fun of skiing is what he gets.
The $20 is what he gave up.

What do you think comes next?

opportunity cost: the best thing you give up when you make a choice

Supply and demand

💡 When many people want something and there is little of it, the price usually goes up.

Supply is how much of something there is. Demand is how much people want it.

When demand is high and supply is low, prices usually go up. Sellers know buyers will pay more.

In the gold rush, thousands of miners needed shovels, food, and tents. Some people sold them supplies instead of mining. They made money whether or not anyone found gold.

🧠 Let's work it out

Ask two questions: many buyers or few?
Lots of the item or little?
Early snow means many skiers want jackets.
Shops have only a few left.
Many buyers and few jackets means prices go up.

What do you think comes next?

supply: how much of something there is to sell
demand: how much people want to buy something

Earning a living in Colorado

💡 Colorado earns money from farms, visitors, and many kinds of jobs, and more kinds of jobs make a town safer from bad years.

Tourism means visitors come and spend money. They pay for hotels and ski tickets. That brings money to mountain towns.

Food takes steps to reach you. A Western Slope farmer grows peaches. Workers pick them. Trucks carry them. A store sells them.

A town that depends on one crop has a risk. If a dry year ruins that crop, the whole town loses money. Many kinds of jobs spread out the risk.

🧠 Let's work it out

For costs, multiply.
Three ski passes at $50 each is 3 times $50, or $150.
For risk, ask what happens if one thing fails.
If a town has only one crop, one bad year hurts everyone.

What do you think comes next?

tourism: visitors coming to a place and spending money there