Economics Wisconsin

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Wisconsin Economic Standard
D.8.10

Economic Institutions

Identify the economic roles of institutions such as corporations and businesses, banks, labor unions, and the Federal Reserve System

Economic Concepts
Corporation  ||  Business  ||  Banks  ||  Labor union  || Federal Reserve System

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Links to Content Information

blue check mark AFL-CIO Today's Links   
blue check mark American Labor History: An Online Study Guide - Includes an online general history of Labor in America and the Labor History Chronology.
blue check mark Chicago Board of Trade - Learn everything you ever wanted to know and more about the world's oldest, largest and leading futures and options marketplace.
blue check mark The Federal Reserve System
blue check mark Financial Institutions - Kids' page from the Department of Financial Institutions of the State of Wisconsin. Describes the difference between banks, financial institutions, and credit unions.
blue check mark Hoover's Online - Hoover's Online is a business service with information on the world's top 1500 companies. 
blue check mark News and Facts about Unions, Jobs and Workers - from the UAW.
blue check mark What is a Credit Union? - By the Credit Union National Association (CUNA)

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Links to Lesson Plans and other Suggested Teaching Strategies

blue arrow A Penny Saved is a Penny at 4.7% Earned - Grades 6-8. Students establish a budget, define interest, and compare different budgets.

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List of Curricular Materials and Learning Activities

blue push pin Master Curriculum Guide in Economics: Teaching Strategies 5-6 from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin.  Unit 5, Lesson 15:   Savers and Borrowers - In this lesson students encounter difficulties in lending and borrowing.  They identify financial institutions as effective intermediaries in this process.  In closure they discuss the role credit can have on the growth of a community.
blue push pin The Community Publishing Company - Grades 3-5.  In this series of 33 lessons, students explore their communities, then write reports, form a publishing company, and manufacture and sell their book. Through this involving and motivating program, students learn economic concepts: scarcity, opportunity cost and trade-offs, productivity, economic institutions and incentives, exchange, money, and interdependence, markets and prices, supply and demand.  From Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin.
blue push pin Ump's Fwat - Grades 1-8.  This 24-page illustrated book teaches basic economic concepts through the story of a cartoon-character caveman named Ump. As Ump turns his idea (the Fwat) into a successful public company, students will learn about the principles of capital formation, including savings, investment, profit, employment, stocks, and dividends. From Economics America (search catalogue).
blue push pin Focus on Economics: United States History, from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin.  Lesson 13: Why Would Grape Pickers Ask People Not to Buy Grapes? - Students examine the problems of grape pickers and  identify the costs and benefits associated with alternatives they might consider.  pp.130-137
blue push pin Economics for the Elementary Classroom by Elaine C. Coulson and Sarapage McCorkle, 1982. St. Louis, MO: SPEC Publishers.  The following lessons for grades 2-6: 
     * What? How? For Whom? - pp. 78-79
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Money and Banking: Middle School Curriculum by Kathleen Ryan Johnston; 1993.  Includes units: Introduction to Money, Federal Reserve System, and Banking as a Business/Services Banks Provide.  Published by:  Banc One Wisconsin Corporation 
111 E. Wisconsin Avenue 
P.O. Box 481 
Milwaukee, WI 53201 
(414) 765-2566

blue push pin Virtual Economics: An Interactive Center for Economic Education, Version 2 - Each exhibit includes teaching tips, background information, a list of lessons, and video and audio clips that give additional information about the topic.  Available from Economics America (search catalogue). 
  • In section Fundamental Economics, see exhibit:  Economic Institutions and Incentives
  • In section MacroEconomics, see exhibits: 
    • Monetary Policy
    • Fiscal Policy

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National Content Standard 6.

    Scroll down the linked page to locate the grade 8 benchmarks. 

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Email an expert

    Professor Mark Schug - University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

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Developed by 
Lynn Kirby, Ph.D.
Larry Weiser, Ph.D.