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A Perfect Pet

Key Economic Concepts:

• Choice
• Decision Making
• Economic Wants
• Scarcity

Description:

The introduction to this lesson is a brief online story about a little girl’s visit to a pet store with her father. She considers several pets before choosing a “cute and cuddly” dog. Students are reminded that pet owners are responsible for keeping their pets safe, healthy and happy. A discussion of a pet owners desire to provide the best for their pets leads to an exploration of people’s wants. The activities that follow challenge students to explore the wants of a pet owner and their desire to provide the best for their pet fish, and then the wants of a person. The students learn that the ability to discover their wants will help them establish priorities when they are faced with scarcity. During the evaluation process, students identify some of their personal wants. As a class, they discuss why some choices are the same and others are different. They take the discussion a step further exploring how their wants compare with those of siblings and adults in their lives. They discover that age, lifestyle, likes (tastes and preferences) and what one views as important (values) help to explain the differences.

Lesson Objectives:

Students will:

• Identify economic wants of pet owners.
• Experience scarcity when making choices.
• Explain why people have different economic wants.

Introduction:

Have students read the story, "The Perfect Pet ^[1] ".

Then discuss, "Do you have a dog or know someone else who does?" If you do, you know that adopting a dog means more than just finding an animal that is cute and cuddly. You have to care for it. Pets depend on their owners to provide the goods and services that keep them healthy and happy. These things are called economic wants.

Resources:

• The Perfect Pet: Here is an online story about a little girl who goes to a pet store to find the perfect pet.
  www.storyplace.org/preschool/activities/petsonstory.asp ^[1]
   
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration: This website offers a pet puzzle- students piece together the scrambled puzzle and read the message provided.
  www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/kids/html/petpuzzle.htm ^[2]
   
• Interactive Activity -the economic wants of pet owners; for students with limited reading skills. You can project this activity via an LCD projector or TV monitor and read the text to the students.

Process:

ACTIVITY 1

Read to or have students read the flash activity economic wants of pet owners. Use the text and questions in the THINK ABOUT IT section of the student version as the basis for a discussion on economic wants and scarcity.  What things would you want for your pet? [Potential responses include: food, water, shelter, health care, exercise, treats, costumes, beds, a leash and collar, etc. ]

Few pet owners have enough money to buy everything they want for their pets. This is called a scarcity problem. Scarcity forces people to make choices.

• If you could buy just five of the many things at the pet store for your new dog, what would you buy? [Responses will vary.]

[Note to teacher: If time allows, you may want to have students write a list or draw pictures of the five items they would choose in response to this question. Have several students share their choices with classmates to help illustrate the point that students - and people, in general - have different economic wants.]

• Which of your choices are the same as those of your classmates? [Responses will vary.]
• Why do you think these choices were the same? [Responses will probably center on the fact that dogs must have certain things to be healthy and survive. Some students may also point out that they simply liked (valued) some of the same things.]
• Which of your choices are different? [Responses will vary.]
• Why do you think that these choices were different? [Students may point out that they already have some of the things they want for their pet. Others may explain that they simply liked (valued) some things more than others.]

ACTIVITY 2

Have students imagine the girl in the story, "A Perfect Pet" picked a fish instead of a dog as her new pet. Direct students to look at the items she wants for her fish as identified in the interactive activity. Announce that like most people, the little girl has a scarcity problem. She has only $5.00 to make her purchases. Direct students to choose the things they would purchase with the little girl's $5.00.

Conclusion:

Ask students to summarize the reasons people's choices are not always the same. Three factors to be identified include:

1. Our personal preferences - what we like
2. Our values - what we think is important
3. Our haves - what we already own or have access to

Assessment Activity:

Have students give reasons for their choices in Activity 2. For younger students,this may be an oral report. Older students can write sentences or paragraphs citing their choices and reasons for their choices.

Extension Activity:

Have students try to unscramble the picture of a dog and dog house in the Pet Puzzle ^[2] activity.

Links Used:

1. ^{^ ^} "The Perfect Pet" - (www.storyplace.org)
2. ^{^ ^} "www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/kids/html/petpuzzle.htm" - (www.fda.gov)

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