Online Lesson

Follow us

Build Your Community

Key Economic Concepts:

• Choice
• Decision Making

Description:

Students will learn about a variety of businesses and the service they provide to a community. They will build a town selecting seven business they feel would be the most important to have in order to live in this community.

Lesson Objectives:

Students will:

• Identify businesses that provide goods and services of the sort that people in most communities want to have.
• Create a collage representing goods and services that their families consume.
• Give one reason why they selected each business in their community and tell what good or service each business will provide to the community.
  
  

Introduction:

Build the community of your dreams. Learn about the different businesses and what service they provide. Grab your hard hat and help Bubba the builder begin to lay out your community.

Resources:

• "Build A Neighborhood": As children grow, they move from being family-centered to understanding there is a whole community around them. Creating neighborhoods in their artwork can help them realize that people live in all kinds of communities of neighbors and friends and that decisions are made as communities are built.
  http://pbskids.org/rogers/R_house/build.htm
   
•     "Factory Work - How Things Are Produced":Seeing the factory can help the students understand that most things happen through a process— with a beginning, a middle, and an end. (NOTE: you will need to have RealOne Player to view the online movies provided on this site)
  http://pbskids.org/rogers/R_house/picpic.htm ^[2]
  

"Goods" - Anything that anyone wants. All options or alternatives are goods. Goods can be tangible or intangible.(taken from A Journalist's Guide to Economic Terms - www.facsnet.org/ ^[3] )

"Services" - Commodities that are not (or are only incidentally) physical objects, but that are instead useful processes or pieces of information. Services are contrasted with goods--commodities that are principally useful physical objects. (taken from Macroeconomics Glossary - www.j-bradford-delong.net/macro_online/display_glossary.html ^[4]

Process:

The students should visit the following link to build a community.

"Build A Neighborhood" http://pbskids.org/rogers/R_house/build.htm ^[1]
Creating neighborhoods in artwork can help the students to realize that people live in all kinds of communities of neighbors and friends.

Now that the students have an idea of what they want their community to look like, they should visit the following link to get an idea of what they want to have in their community.

"Factory Work - How Things Are Produced" http://pbskids.org/rogers/R_house/picpic.htm ^[2]
Seeing the factory can help the students understand that most things happen through a process— with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Think About It...

1. What are some main businesses likely to be found in most communities?
   [Hardware store, clothing store, grocery store, laundromat, flower shop, car dealership, gas station, health club, video store, arcade, vetenarian's clinic, medical clinic, pharmacy, bank, toy store, candy store, ice cream store.]
2. What are two reasons why the businesses listed would be important to the success of a community?
   [Possible answers: the businesses listed would provide jobs for people, help people to earn money, provide a service to the community, bring new people to the community, help the community to grow.]
3. What would these businesses offer to the people that live in the community?
   [The businesses listed would provide both goods and services that many people in a typical community would want to have.]
4. Which of the answers below is not a reason why businesses are important to the success of a community?
   a. Business would provide jobs for people to earn money.
   b. Some businesses produce goods.
   c. Some businesses provide a service.
   d. People really don't need to have a job. [Correct.]
5. What goods and services would these business offer to the people that live in the community?
   Drag and Drop Activity Part 1
   Drag and Drop Activity Part 2
6. Why would it be important to have these businesses in the community?
   a. provide jobs for people [Correct]
   b. provide services [Correct]
   c. eat ice cream
   d. provide goods [Correct]
   e. have fun
7. What do you feel are the six most important businesses to have in a community? Complete the following activity to decide what you want your community to be like.
   Build Your Community Activity
   [Once students have completed the above activity, they should print their community and answer the following questions that are included on their print out.
   a. List each business you chose and give one reason why you feel that business is necessary for your community.
   b. What service does each of these businesses offer to a community?
   c. Write a story about what it's like to live in your community, or about the jobs that people do, or why all the different jobs in the community are important.]

Conclusion:

In the classroom students will respond to these questions in a class discussion format.

• List each business you chose and give one reason why you feel that business is necessary to the development/benefit of the community.
• What service does each of these business offer to a community?
• Why would it be important to have these businesses in the community?

Assessment Activity:

Make sure the students can select the three correct answers from the following list of five choices as to why it would be important to have these businesses in the community.
[1. Provide a service to the community
2. Produce a good or product for the people
3. Provide jobs for the community
4. Nice to have those businesses in town
5. Makes the town bigger.]

Have the community that they designed printed off as an end product of what the student created. Print out copies of the community the students have designed. Assign them to write a story about their community.

Extension Activity:

At Home Project

Have the students build a 3-dimensioal community of the town that you live in. They may use various materials (e.g., milk cartons, shoe boxes), depending out what is available.

Links Used:

1. ^{^} "http://pbskids.org/rogers/R_house/build.htm" - (pbskids.org)
2. ^{^ ^} "http://pbskids.org/rogers/R_house/picpic.htm" - (pbskids.org)
3. ^{^} "www.facsnet.org/" - (www.facsnet.org)
4. ^{^} "www.j-bradford-delong.net/macro_online/display_glossary.html" - (www.j-bradford-delong.net)

Teacher Reviews

Insert a comment, suggestion or review of this lesson here. The comments will not appear immediately due to a time delay to allow for a review by a member of our staff.