What do rising grocery prices, tariffs, and group projects have in common? Each offers a chance to explore economic principles at work in everyday life. For Economic Education Month, we're helping you bring these connections into the classroom with resources that encourage students to examine competing explanations, investigate incentives, weigh trade-offs, and consider how economic policies and systems affect the world around them.

BOTH SIDES OF THE ISSUE

Aisle Be Paying More?

Why do groceries cost so much these days? Corporate influence, government policies, supply and demand, or something else? This Both Sides pairing examines two perspectives on rising food prices and what can be done about them. Students compare competing explanations, identify common ground, and evaluate evidence behind each argument.

Concepts: supply and demand, competition, government regulation, inflation, tariffs

Resources: MiniGuide with discussion questions

VIDEO LIBRARY

Duty Calls. Higher Prices Answer.

Governments use tariffs to protect domestic industries and jobs. But what do tariffs actually do? Through small business owners’ experiences and examples from the steel industry, John Stossel examines how trade restrictions can raise prices, threaten jobs, and disrupt trade. Use these examples to help students evaluate the economic trade-offs and whether tariffs achieve their intended goals.

Concepts: tariffs, protectionism, free trade, trade-offs, unintended consequences

Resources: Teacher’s Guide, Quiz, Kahoot

EDUCATOR BLOG

The Cost of a Free Ride

In group projects, it’s common for one or two students to do the heavy lifting while others coast to the same grade. There’s an economic principle behind that classroom frustration—the free rider problem. Our latest blog post introduces a hands-on experiment to help students learn how incentives influence cooperation, individual responsibility, and the success or failure of shared efforts.

MODULES

Our modules bring together resources from across our website around a subject, giving you multiple ways to examine an issue, build understanding, and extend classroom learning. Explore the modules featured below to help your students better understand economic systems and policies.

Making Cents of Economic Choices

Make the most of Economic Education Month with our modules on key economic principles. Economic Systems covers how economic systems operate and affect individuals and society. Economic Policies focuses on tariffs, inflation, spending, and more, including their intended and unintended consequences. These lessons help students compare approaches, weigh trade-offs, and evaluate outcomes.