Enduring Understandings - important ideas that students should carry with them years beyond the instruction received this year.

• People and nations interact politically.
• Exchange of goods and services leads to trade and interdependence.
• Decisions must be made about the use of scarce resources.
• Resources are used to produce and distribute good and services.

Essential Questions - most important “big picture” questions students should be able to answer after completing learning activities.

• How do people and communities help each other?
• Why do people in a community depend on each other?
• Why must we make choices about scarce resources?
• How are goods made and delivered?

Standards and Benchmarks
Civics 3: Students know the political relationship of the United States and its citizens to other nations and to world affairs.
Benchmark A: Students know how and why governments and nongovernmental agencies around the world interact politically.
Economics 1:Students understand that because of the condition of scarcity, decisions must be made about the use of resources.
Benchmark A: Students know that economic choices are made because resources are scarce and that the act of making economic choices imposes opportunity costs (e.g., using land for farming or ranching, forests for recreation or lumber).
Economics 2: Students understand how different economic systems impact decisions about the use of resources and the production and distribution of goods and services.
Benchmark A: Students understand that different economic systems employ different means to produce, distribute, and exchange goods and services.
Economics 3: Students understand the results of trade, exchange, and interdependence among individuals, households, businesses, governments, and societies.
Benchmark A: Students understand that the exchange of good and services creates economic interdependence and change.

Elementary Social Studies D-11 Indicators, K-5

History
1.Chronological Organization: Organize events and people in history chronologically (time lines, lists, sequencing).
2.Historical Inquiry: Use primary and secondary sources to ask and answer questions (who, what, when, why, how) about the past and present, and to determine cause and effect relationships.
3.Diverse and Changing Societies: Describe cultural similarities, differences and interactions among various groups in both past and present.
4.Science, Technology, and Economic Activity: Identify and explain changes in technology (scientific achievements and inventions) and how they changed history.
5.Political Institutions and Theories: Describe how and why rules and laws (government) have been made and enforced.
6.Religious and Philosophical Ideas: Identify beliefs of individuals and groups and their effects on societies.

Geography
1.Use of Geographic Tools: Use tools (maps, globes, photographs, graphs, charts, and databases) to locate information about places.
2.and 3.Physical Processes/Physical and Human Characteristics of Places and Regions: Identify and describe human and physical characteristics of places, and use them to define regions.
4.Patterns of Human Population: Explain why people migrate and settle in different places.
5.Human and Physical Systems: Describe ways humans change the physical environment and how the physical environment affects human activity.
6.Apply Knowledge of Geography: Describe how and why places change over time.

Civics
1.Purpose of Government and US Constitutional Principles: Explain how people get, use, and misuse power and authority.
2.Structure and Function of Government: Explain how governments are organized at the local, state, and national levels and the responsibilities of each.
3.Political Relationships: Describe ways that peoples and nations interact.
4.Citizenship Participation: Explain the rights, roles, and responsibilities of students as citizens in the classroom, school, community, state, and nation.

Economics
1.Scarcity and Decision-Making: Identify scarce natural, human, and capital resources and evaluate decisions about how they are used.
2.Resources and Production of Goods and Services: Explain how, why, and for whom goods and services are produced.
3.Trade, Exchange, and Economic Interdependence: Identify ways goods and services are distributed through trade, exchange and interdependence.

District 11 Diamond Units/Lessons Overview - includes information about the purpose, goals and structure of these sample instructional units:

Lessons 1-4: Community Problem Solvers
Duration: @ 4 class periods
       
Standards: Civics 3:  Students know the political relationship of the United States and its citizens to other nations and to world affairs.
Economics 3:  Students understand the results of trade, exchange, and interdependence among individuals, households, businesses, governments, and societies. 
District Indicator:  Describe ways that people and nations interact.
Enduring Understanding:  People and nations interact politically.
Essential Questions:  How do people and communities help each other?
Assessment:  Social Studies Alive! Lesson Guide Assessment 11 Alternative: Create a poster honoring someone from your school that has made a difference in the community

Activities

1. Identify people from the past who have solved problems in their communities.
2. Determine which problem was the easiest and which most difficult to solve.
3. Determine which person made the biggest contribution by solving a problem

Resources: Social Studies Alive! Lesson 11; 11.1 - 11.3.

Differentiation
Extension:  Interview the principal and ask questions about what the principal has done to make a difference in the school.  Or interview someone in the community.
Support: Pair students to create the poster. Alter the rubric to meet student needs. Read the audio book, Community Helpers.

Lessons 5-9: Communities Share
Duration: 5 class periods
         
Standards:
Civics 3: Students know the political relationship of the United States and its citizens to other nations and to world affairs.
Benchmark A: Students know how and why governments and nongovernmental agencies around the world interact politically
Economics 3: Students understand the results of trade, exchange, and interdependence among individuals, households, businesses, governments, and societies.
Benchmark A: Students understand that the exchange of good and services creates economic interdependence and change.
District Indicator: Trade, Exchange, and Economic Interdependence: Identify ways goods and services are distributed through trade, exchange and interdependence.
Indicators: Political Relationships: Describe ways that peoples and nations interact.
Trade, Exchange, and Economic Interdependence: Identify ways goods and services are distributed through trade, exchange and interdependence
Enduring Understandings: People and nations interact politically.
Exchange of goods and services leads to trade and interdependence.
Essential Questions: Why do people in a community depend on each other?
Assessment:
Assessment 14, pp. 188+189 Lesson Guide
Participation in the trading activity and completion of the record page
Ability to accurately define map, country, and trade
Response to prompt: Write a paragraph about communities share.
Teacher made rubric

Activities

1. Students will read or share in the reading of Ch. 14, pp.93-99, “What Do Communities Share?, Social Studies Alive! : My Community emphasizing that there are many communities in our country, that communities share the food they grow, the goods they make, the special places they enjoy, and happy and sad events they experience.
2. Using Transparency 14 introduce map, country, and the concept that different areas of our country produce different things that are shared with the rest of the areas of the country that do not produce these things.
3. Provide students with an Interactive Desk Map (see resource kit) to aid in completing  Preview 14, p. 57, Interactive Student Notebook, emphasizing the term state and locating Colorado, and Colorado Springs on the map with a dot and coloring the map (as time permits).
4. Students will complete as a whole group, Reading Notes, pp. 58+59, Interactive Student Notebook, using a reproduced set of cards, Student Handout 14.3, learning details about each of the locations as they place them on the numbered boxes in the Notebook.
5. Reproduce Student Handouts 14.2A-14.2C, providing 1 strip of product per child, and 14.2D record sheet, 1 per child. The children trade cards based on need. (See p.185 Lesson Guide for exact procedure) In this way they experience the concept of economic interdependence – bartering and trading something they have for something they need from another student. View the Goods and Services video, if not previously seen.
6. Use Information Master 14.3 along with Transparencies 14.3A-14.3C to discuss what is unique and special about our country such that tourists from other nations come to see them.  At this point, Kenya can be revisited online through www.timeforkids, www.discovery.com  or www.scholastic.com and used for comparison study of foods, goods and services, places of interest, and celebrations which will vary widely from our traditions in the United States.
7. Students will complete Processing 14, p. 60,  Interactive Student Notebook in which each draws a picture so something that makes his/her community special, and writes three sentences about the picture in a postcard format.

Resources: Transparencies 14-14.3, Interactive Desk Map, Reproduced copies of Student Handouts 14.2A-14.3, Scissors, glue, crayons

Differentiation
Support: Read with/for the student or partner with another child or group. Model for the student and provide assistance with each activity by filling in some of the components before class such the percentage for student completion is lessened. Allow the student to point or respond orally.
Extension: Student can create a flow chart showing the interdependence of positions within the school: secretary, food services, building manager, etc. and share this chart with the whole class.

Lessons 10-14: Scarcity
Duration: 5 class periods
         
Standards:
Economics 1: Students understand that because of the condition of scarcity, decisions must be made about the use of resources.
Benchmark A: Students know that economic choices are made because resources are scarce and that the act of making economic choices imposes opportunity costs (e.g., using land for farming or ranching, forests for recreation or lumber).
Indicator: Scarcity and Decision-Making: Identify scarce natural, human, and capital resources and evaluate decisions about how they are used.
Enduring Understandings: Decisions must be made about the use of scarce resources.
Essential Questions: Why must we make choices about scarce resources?
Assessment: Students provide one or more examples of a scarce resource and explain both concepts by telling why it is scare.

Activities

1. Students will listen to or partner read if multiple copies are available: The Berenstain Bears and Mama’s New Job by Stan and Jan Berenstain and A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams.
2. Students will define the vocabulary words: economic, resource, and scarcity through the experiences of the families in the stories.
3. Draw or write in response to one or both of the stories, illustrating the decisions made when resources are scarce.
4. They will participate in an activity in which there is only a limited amount of something and everyone wants some.  An example might be candy.  If there are only 10 pieces and 20 students want some, what decision can be made about what to do?  Explain that the candy is a resource, and that there is not enough so it is scarce.  Scarcity is when a resource is in smaller than needed amounts. 
5. Discuss: How do people use resources?  List: What things are scarce at school, and in the school community?
6. Visit Colorado Council on Economic Education www.econedlink.org/lessons go to K-2 Lessons “A Perfect Pet”.
7. Visit the U.S. Treasury Dept. website.
8. Visit www.Minyanland.com  the National Council on Economic Education site.
9. Students may spend some time on the websites as there are other links to financial/economic education.
10. Topics for discussion: How do farmers, ranchers, fishermen, builders, teachers, students, moms and dads use resources? 

Resources:
Multiple copies of The Berenstain Bears and Mama’s New Job by Stan and Jan Berenstain and A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams
Access to: Colorado Council on Economic Education www.econedlink.org/lessons; www.Minyanland.com  the National Council on Economic Education site

Differentiation
Support:  Students choose something from within the classroom that is scarce (i.e. the number of computers vs. the number of students) and explains how the teacher and the students decide how to use the scarce resource.
Extensions:  Ask the students to apply the concept of scarcity to a limited supply of gas or water (drought) and complete a cause/effect graphic organizer.

Lessons 15-19:  How Are Goods Made and Brought to Us?
Duration: 5 class periods
         
Standards
Economics 2: Students understand how different economic systems impact decisions about the use of resources and the production and distribution of goods and services.
Benchmark A: Students understand that different economic systems employ different means to produce, distribute, and exchange goods and services.
District Indicator:  Explain how, why, and for whom goods and services are produced.
Enduring Understandings: Resources are used to produce and distribute good and services.
Essential Questions: How are goods made and delivered?
Assessment:
Assessment 6 pp. 69+70 Lesson Guide
Ability to correctly define vocabulary, explain what was represented by the activities
Response to prompt: How are goods made and brought to us?
Teacher made rubric

Activities

1. Students will listen to or partner read in pairs or small groups, if multiple copies are available: How a Book Is Made by Aliki (New York: HarperTrophy, 1988), Farming by Gail Gibbons (New York: Holiday House, 1990), and/or How Goods Are Moved by Carole Wicklander (Skokie, IL.: Rand McNally, 1999).
2. If multiple copies were available for small groups to be created, use the Jigsaw method to have student groups summarize the story each read for the class.
3. Draw or write in response to one of the stories, illustrating a key concept presented by the groups.
4. Read with the class Ch. 6, pp. 41-47, “How Are Goods Made and Brought to Us?, Social Studies Alive!: My Community. 
5. Students will define the vocabulary words:  goods, transportation, factory, assembly-line, distribution. 
6. Complete with students Reading Notes 6, p. 23, Interactive Student Notebook.
7. Model working as a team using Student Handout 6.1 Clown Maze Game and Information Master 6.1.  Demonstrate how the toy is used (see pp. 65+66  Lesson Guide) and ability group students (5 groups) so that they can follow the directions and construct the game assembly-line fashion.  Discuss the activity emphasizing the concept of “division of labor”.
8. Play “Transportation Relay” (p. 66 Lesson Guide) simulating the distribution and transportation of the Clown Maze Game from the “factory” to the “store”. 
9. Complete Reading Notes 6 pp. 24+25, Interactive Student Notebook, filling in the appropriate transportation method on the correct lines
10. Assign students to work in pairs to complete Processing pp. 26+27 to create a plan, flow chart, to make and distribute a product (Lesson Guide p. 67). Students may do a “gallery walk” to showcase their products.

Resources
Multiple copies of: How a Book Is Made by Aliki (New York: HarperTrophy, 1988), Farming by Gail Gibbons (New York: Holiday House, 1990), and/or How Goods Are Moved by Carole Wicklander (Skokie, IL.: Rand McNally, 1999).
Scissors, glue, crayons, paper clips

Differentiation
Support: Students will be assisted in these activities by group members.
Extensions: Provide other scenarios for the students to decide what the quickest method of transportation for the goods might be and why.
Students who love math challenge could decide the least expensive method of transportation for the goods.  They might also predict which method would be most environmentally friendly (incorporating some Science application, as well).