Creating Our Economy is a comprehensive video-supported economics resource for fifth through eighth grade students. With real-life applications representing a range of industries and enterprises, the series explores key economic principles from the inside out. Go to the farm, get on the production line with manufacturing, and visit with education and the service sector.

Through a series of 11 lessons detailed in the comprehensive teacher’s guide and five segmented videos, Creating Our Economy helps students meet 16 essential economics standards recommended by the National Council on Economic Education. Each unit in the 200+ page teacher’s guide includes structured lesson plans, black line masters, Web-based activities, and opportunities to integrate economics across the curriculum. A video discussion guide is also included in the print materials.

Factors of Production
A rural school district provides the site to look at the factors involved with delivering a service: education. Interviews with administrators and staff illustrate how school districts apply resources such as land, labor, and capital.

Markets and Prices
A visit to a farm in America’s Corn Belt lends opportunities to study the chain of supply and demand. A consumer purchase of corn flakes at a grocery store links to the cereal producer, the grain buyer, and ultimately, the farmer.

Monopoly and Competitive Markets
The telecommunications industry is the perfect laboratory for examining how the United States government interceded to affect necessary market changes and improve competition.

Markets and Competition
Targeted market research, trends, product innovation, and advertising are the key components driving consumer demand as we see in this episode featuring a popular drink for the “tweens,” kids between the ages of 8 and 13.

International Trade
The global market is the focus of this episode. Viewers wind through design, manufacturing, and comparing the competitive advantage that U.S. suppliers of specialized machinery enjoy and the various advantages that support imported materials and products from Brazil.

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Produced by WCET, Cincinnati, in collaboration with Ohio Educational Telecommunications and with assistance from the Economics Center for Education and Research at the University of Cincinnati ©2002.