Economics Wisconsin

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Wisconsin Economic Standard
D.8.8

Entrepreneurs

Explain how and why people who start new businesses take risks to provide goods and services, considering profits as an incentive

Economic Concepts
Entrepreneur  ||  Goods  ||  Services  ||  Incentive  ||  Profit

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Links to Content Information

blue check mark Issues in Starting a Business - A wide variety of information about starting a business.
blue check mark Junior Achievement - Teaching Kids How Business Works
blue check mark Overview of Individual & Group - from CyberEconomics: A Semi-Interactive, Almost- Multimedia Way to Learn Economics, by Robert E. Schenk. (Background information for teachers.)
blue check mark Simplified Tax and Wage Reporting System: Kids Page - Takes you through the process of starting a business, paying taxes and filing reports.
blue check mark Small Business Administration - First Steps: How to Start a Small Business
blue check mark Wisconsin Department of Commerce

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Links to Lesson Plans and other Suggested Teaching Strategies

blue arrow Designing a Dream Store - Grades 5-6.  Students will plan, create, and advertise their very own, unique store.
blue arrow An Entreduction - When entrepreneurs see an opportunity, they can do one of two things. They can develop either an invention or an innovation.
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 Homer Price (the Doughnuts) - Grades 4-6.  Homer's Uncle's newest capital resource, the doughnut machine, goes on a rampage making hundreds of doughnuts. Learn about economics: capital resources, increasing productivity, law of demand, quantity demanded.
blue arrow How has the Constitution shaped the economy in the U.S.? - Class discussion and small group task identifying the six characteristics of a market economy and the provisions in the constitution  that support a market economy. From Focus on Economics: Civics and Government, �National Council on Economic Education.
blue arrow Old Business, New Business - Grades 3-5. Students identify goods and services and learn that specialization leads to greater interdependence.
blue arrow The Richest Man in the World: Andrew Carnegie - Lesson based on the PBS film Andrew Carnegie. This immigrant went from rags to riches, a self-made man who became a captain of industry, the king of steel. He preached the obligation of the wealthy to return their money to the societies where they made it.
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 U.S. History: Inventors and Entrepreneurs - An entrepreneur takes the risk of bringing together resources to bring a good or service to market in hopes of making a profit.
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 1, Lesson 1:  The Path Not Taken - Students create a decision/opportunity cost flowchart for Madam C. J. Walker.   
  • Unit 3, Lesson 7:  How Many Should We Sell? - Students learn to predict the impact on supply of nonprice determinants and to differentiate between changes in supply and changes in quantity supplied.
  • Unit 3, Lesson 8:  The Profit Puzzle - Students help Pierre determine which items to continue to sell in his bakery, based on identifying the most profitable items.  The concepts are reinforced as students make similar decisions for opening a school snack bar.
blue push pin Master Curriculum Guide in Economics: Teaching Strategies 5-6 from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin. Relevant lessons: 
  • Lesson 7:  Widget Production - By producing widgets, students learn about productivity and how productivity can be increased. 
  • Lesson 8:  Creative Toy Production - By creating a prototype of a toy and operating a business, students learn about how businesses earn profits or losses.
  • Lesson 9:  Producers and Suppliers - Using graphing skills and analysis, students identify the relationship between price and how much producers produce and sell. 
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: 
    * Production Possibilities - pp. 70-75 
    * Designer Necklaces - pp. 76-77 
    * Which Price? - pp. 157-162 
    * Creative Toy Production - pp. 195-198 
    * Producers and Supply - pp. 208-212 
    * Supply Changes - pp. 213-215 
    * Market Madness - pp. 232-240
blue push pin Focus on Economics: United States History, from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin.  Lesson 10--Why Would White Baseball Club Owners Sign Black Players? - After a discussion of racial barriers, students examine the incentives that influenced the decisions of baseball club owners and African-American players.

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National Content Standard 14.

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

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Email an expert

    Professor Mark Schug - University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

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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