Economics Wisconsin

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Wisconsin Economic Standard
D.8.1

Money

Describe and explain how money makes it easier to trade, borrow, save, invest, and compare the value of goods and services.

Economic Concepts
Money  ||  Trade  ||  Save  ||  Goods  ||  Services  ||  Barter  ||  Investment

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Links to Content Information

Money, Currency
blue check mark American Currency Exhibit - Money hasn't always looked like it does today. Explore the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco's American Currency Exhibit online and watch history come alive as you step back in time to our nation's beginning. Learn how our country's rich history is closely tied with our currency. Discover the role the Federal Reserve has played--and continues to play--in that history.
blue check mark B.E.P. Kid's Page (Bureau of Engraving and Printing) - Links to activities, a game, and information for students about money.
blue check mark A Comparative Chronology of Money - A detailed chronology of money in its social and political context from the very earliest times onwards.
blue check mark Currency Information
blue check mark Consumer Financial Literacy - A personal finance curriculum for middle-school students.
blue check mark  History of Money - Kids page from the Department of Financial Institutions of the State of Wisconsin. Includes Trading, Birth of Money, The First Coins, US Money Trail, Mint Act, "Greenbacks", and more.
blue check mark The Monetary Museum - Tells the function and history of money.
blue check mark MoneyWords - A glossary of words about money.
blue check mark Our Money - Has information about the appearance and design of U.S. currency, counterfeit protection, and the history of money.  Also has a guide for teaching a unit on money and links to free materials. 
blue check mark Treasury's Page for Kids - From the U.S. Treasury Department. Contains information about money, savings bonds, the history and role of the Treasury Department, and much more.

Saving, Banking, Investing
blue check mark Building Your Savings - A list of principles to help you save effectively.
blue check mark Chicago Board of Trade - Learn everything you ever wanted to know and more about the world's oldest, largest and leading futures and options marketplace.
blue check mark Making Sense of Savings - From the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Describes options available for saving money including bank accounts and many types of investments. Provides help in determining which is option to choose for your needs.
blue check mark Reach Your Goals By Saving! - A calculator to determine how long it will take to save for something at various interest rates.
blue check mark Saving and Investing - Contains the following information:  Financial Calculator, Where to Invest $1,000, The Magic of Compounding, Financial Pyramid, How to Be a Millionaire When You Retire,  and the Rule of 72
blue check mark Savings Options - Kids page from the Department of Financial Institutions of the State of Wisconsin. Includes Piggy Banks, Savings Accounts, Checking Accounts, and more.
blue check mark What is Investing? - Kids page from the Department of Financial Institutions of the State of Wisconsin. Describes stocks, bonds, mutual funds; and more.

Background For Teachers
blue check mark Democracy and Government Control of the Money Supply - This essay looks at the revolution of electronic money and how democracy may be influenced. (Background information for teachers.)
blue check mark Money - Chapter 18 from Essential Principles of Economics: A Hypermedia Text, First Revised Draft. (Background information for teachers.)

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Links to Lesson Plans and other Suggested Teaching Strategies

blue arrow Changes in Change - This lesson will sharpen students' money counting skills and introduce you to some new coins.
blue arrow Escape from Knab - A movie and game about savings. Requires Shockwave.
blue arrow Hey, Mom! What's For Breakfast? - Grades 3-5. Students will distinguish between goods and services, identify economic wants, and distinguish between producers and consumers.
blue arrow Investigating Investment Activity (4-12) - From the Bank Street College of Education. With or without money, students have a lot to invest. Invite your students to explore the value of what they have and to create individual plans to get the most from their investments.
blue arrow Money: Bucks, Banks, and Business - Grades 6-8. Students will understand that monetary exchange rates change constantly and how to convert money in any currency into its equivalent in U.S. dollars using current exchange rates. From Discovery Channel.
blue arrow Money: Kids and Cash - Grades 3-5. Students will understand that banks pay and charge interest to savers and lenders. From Discovery Channel.
blue arrow Once Upon a Dime - Grades: 6-9. Examines the development of a modern economy on a mythical island of Mazuma as it presents the basic economic concepts of specialization, barter, money, banking and inflation. Requires Acrobat Reader. (This file is quite large and loads slowly, but can be saved and printed.)
blue arrow The Return of Sacagawea - Grades 6-9. After completing this lesson, students will be able to describe the golden dollar coin, list the advantages that coins have over paper money, and calculate the profit to the US Treasury on golden dollars.
blue arrow A Rooster and a Bean Seed - Ages 7-10.  When people specialize and become interdependent in satisfying their economic wants, trade or exchange of goods and services will occur. The principle of voluntary exchange is based on the assumption that both sides expect to gain from trade. The simplest form of exchange is barter or the direct trade of goods and services between people. In this lesson, students hear a folk tale and participate in a simulation that helps them recognize problems with barter and benefits of monetary exchange.
blue arrow Supply and Demand - This lesson allows for personal involvement in the concept of supply and demand, which helps the students see how it relates to their everyday life. 
blue arrow Teachers Guide for Money Unit - From the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
blue arrow Teaching Basic Banking Principles - This lesson provides an interesting approach to showing how banks "create" money, what reserves are, and what a "run" on a bank is.
blue arrow What is a stock, or who owns McDonald's? - Middle and High School Levels.  Students will explore the fundamentals of stock ownership. They discuss how stock owners share the risks and rewards of purchasing stocks. From Learning for the Market:  Integrating the Stock Market Game Across  the Curriculum, �National Council on Economic Education
blue arrow What is Currency? - Grades 3-8 - Teaches about the history of currency in different cultures and the basic economics concepts of barter and currency. Three lessons include activities studying past currencies as works of art and designing a new currency. Lessons from Historic Africa - Smithsonian in Your Classroom 
blue arrow What is Electronic Banking? - Secondary.  Learners will define electronic banking, describe several electronic fund transfer services, compare several types of electronic currency, and list consumer protections under the Electronic Funds Transfer Act.
blue arrow Other Web Sites - This page lists web sites offering a wealth of lesson plans for teaching economics, in addition to these lesson plans.

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List of Curricular Materials and Learning Activities 

blue push pin Focus: Middle School Economics from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin.  Relevant lessons: 
  • Unit 2, Lesson 3: To Market, Which Market? - Students consider how markets have changed throughout history, describe the markets where they exchange goods and services, and predict new markets that may develop. 
  • Unit 5, Lesson 15:  Savers and Borrowers - In this lesson students encounter difficulties in lending and borrowing.  They identify financial institutions as effective intermediaries in this process.  In closure they discuss the role credit can have on the growth of a community.
blue push pin The Community Publishing Company - Grades 3-5.  In this series of 33 lessons, students explore their communities, then write reports, form a publishing company, and manufacture and sell their book. Through this involving and motivating program, students learn economic concepts: scarcity, opportunity cost and trade-offs, productivity, economic institutions and incentives, exchange, money, and interdependence, markets and prices, supply and demand.  From Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin.
blue push pin Ump's Fwat - Grades 1-8.  This 24-page illustrated book teaches basic economic concepts through the story of a cartoon-character caveman named Ump. As Ump turns his idea (the Fwat) into a successful public company, students will learn about the principles of capital formation, including savings, investment, profit, employment, stocks, and dividends. From Economics America (search catalogue).
blue push pin Economics for the Elementary Classroom by Elaine C. Coulson and Sarapage McCorkle, 1982. St. Louis, MO: SPEC Publishers.  The following lessons for grades 2-6: 
    * Swap Day - pp. 107-108 
    * Try Trading - pp. 109-113 
    * Cash, Charge or Check - pp. 114-116 
    * Whoever Said, "Money Doesn't Grow on Trees?" - pp. 117-119
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Credit for Kids: Credit and Consumer Decision-Making by Diana Haskell, Brenda Manger, Sharon O-Connell; 1995.  Published by:  The Center for Economic Education 
McMicken College of Arts and Sciences 
University of Cincinnati 
1605 Crosley Tower, PO Box 210223 
Cincinnati, OH 45221-0223 
(513) 556-2948,  Fax (513) 556-2953

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Money and Banking: Middle School Curriculum by Kathleen Ryan Johnston; 1993.  Includes units: Introduction to Money, Federal Reserve System, and Banking as a Business/Services Banks Provide.  Published by:  Banc One Wisconsin Corporation 
111 E. Wisconsin Avenue 
P.O. Box 481 
Milwaukee, WI 53201 
(414) 765-2566

blue push pin The Story of Money - High school.  Explains the purposes of money in a modern economy, what characteristics that items used as money have, the way the banking system creates money, and the reasons the Federal Reserve influences the money supply. Teacher's guide also available. 1994. 24pp.  Available from Federal Reserve System. To find it, type "story of money" (without the quote marks) in the keyword search box and click on Go.
blue push pin Virtual Economics: An Interactive Center for Economic Education, Version 2 - Each exhibit includes teaching tips, background information, a list of lessons, and video and audio clips that give additional information about the topic.  Available from Economics America (search catalogue). 
  • In section Fundamental Economics, see exhibit:  Exchange, Money and Interdependence
blue push pin Economics and the Environment, from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin. Unit 2, Lesson 3:  What Are Spotted Owls, Timber Products, and Magical Stones Really Worth? - By means of several activities, students reveal their own economic valuations and discover how these are observed and measured.  p. 28 

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National Content Standard 11.

    Scroll down the linked page to locate the grade 8 benchmarks. 

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Email an expert

    Professor Jim Grunloh, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh 

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Developed by 
Lynn Kirby, Ph.D., Education and Technology Consultant and
Larry Weiser, Ph.D., Program Director, EconomicsWisconsin  
University of Wisconsin--Stevens Point