Economics Currently

In elementary school, once a week a few of my classes would receive magazines that held short news reports, interesting facts, and other factual stories that we would have time to read and talk about. Until creating a current events lesson on economics, I hadn't thought about how important those magazines and news stories were. It is vital that as teachers, as social studies teachers in particular, that we remember to involve students in what is going on in their world on a daily basis.

I created an economic current events presentation using a NewsELA article on Black Friday shopping. For the lesson, students would look at the NewsELA article, as well as articles on the economics of different stores opening earlier or closing down for Thanksgiving. I also provided a few articles on laws that were created because of Black Friday. Using all of these resources, students would be asked to decide if there were enough economic benefits to staying open on Thanksgiving as well as Black Friday, and explain their reasoning. Teaching about Black Friday would be useful when teaching economics because not only is it an event that takes place every year, students will be familiar with it, and may have family members who work in stores that remain open on Thanksgiving which may affect their standpoint. Further, Black Friday relies on so many different concepts of economics, whether it be supply and demand, advertisements and sales, or profit for the stores. All of these concepts could be addressed when the student is explaining their stance on Black Friday.