Concept #5 - Economics (Videos and Critique)

There is so much to know about economics that the Georgia CRCT test for 7th grade Social Studies is worth 35% in this area.  We are only scratching the surface in August, but will see how economic issues are present in nearly everything we study this year.

For now, you need to know that

Production, Distribution, and Consumption of goods and services produced by the society are affected by the location, customs, beliefs, and laws of the society.

Societies must decide on three answers to the following questions:

1. What will we produce?
2. Who (and how) will we produce it?
3. Who will be the consumer of our product?

We will see that these questions are answered differently by people and nations based on their cultural backgrounds (religion, beliefs, traditions, customs, and government).  In fact the videos below show some of the differing opinions. 

In class, we only watched the first video entitled "The Story of Stuff."  While I do not agree with everything in the video, that does not mean there is no value in it.  In fact, much of the video explains the concept well.  The final 4 videos below, show someone's response to the video; another way of considering economics.

The speaker does talk fast, so you might want to pause and rewind in order to understand what she says.  Below is the video in English and Spanish.

English version

Spanish version (in three sections)

There is also a critique (which is good to watch if just for debate purposes) in 4 parts:

As you can tell, there is much disagreement, argument, and conflict about economics in our world.  Hey, wait a minute...confilct is one of our major concepts!  See how it all works together?

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