Economics lesson plans are usually the most interesting to students, since it shows how the entire economy around them is flowing! We have some great places to start when you want to talk about economics in your classroom. This also includes lesson plans on taxes.

• Click Here for Investing Lesson Plans
• Click Here for Savings Lesson Plans
• Click Here for Budgeting Lesson Plans
• Click Here for other Personal Finance Lesson Plans
• Click Here for Math Lesson Plans

Economics Lesson Plans For Elementary School And Up

What Are Incentives?

Source: EconEdLink, by Connections Cross-Curricular

Description: At the core of economics is the incentives for people to do one thing or another. In this lesson plan students identify incentives at home or school, categorize them as “positive” or “negative” and take a look at how they impact their lives

Click Here To Access This Lesson Plan

Making Cents Out Of Centimes

Source: EconEdLink, by Mickey Ebert

Description: This lesson plan is a tool for teaching students that most countries build their own currency, along with the Euro, shared by several countries. It also gives an introduction to interest rates, and how $1 is not 1 Euro

Click Here To Access This Lesson Plan

Tic Tac Taxes

Source: EconEdLink, by Connections Cross-Curricular

Description: This is a basic introduction of looking around at various taxes and services in the community, and identifying how they are all related.

Using Our Simulation: You can have your students use our Home Budget Calculator or Investment Return Calculator to build simple budgets and savings plans with different levels of taxes. For example, ask your students if your town should build a new school or sports arena, and show what impact this would have to each person’s budget or savings plan!

Click Here To Access This Lesson Plan

Who Pays For City Hall?

Source: EconEdLink, by Mickey Ebert

Description: Students take a virtual field trip to a city hall, and learn about both civil government and how taxes are used to pay for services around town

Using Our Simulation: Similar to above, you can have your students see how an increase in city spending can affect the citizen’s budgets.

Click Here To Access This Lesson Plan

To Market To Market

Source: EconEdLink, by Connections Cross-Curricular

Description: Students will create a market in the classroom where they can buy and sell goods between each other based on their wants and needs. They can then get a practical experience to see how prices are made and move between consumers

Using Our Simulation: You can also integrate prices for stock into your lesson! Every time a student gets a quote or makes a trade, we show the bid and ask prices for that security, which might be different from the last prices. If the bid and ask are too far apart, no agreement can be reached, and the stock does not trade. This is part of what makes Penny Stocks so risky!

Click Here To Access This Lesson Plan

Country Mouse Makes A Decision

Source: EconEdLink, by Mickey Ebert

Description: The goal is to create a cost-benefit analysis of Country Mouse on his decisions while he visits the Big City

Using Our Simulation: When your students are putting together their stock portfolio , ask them to build a list of stocks they want to buy first. Next, have them only buy half their list at first, and write down why they chose some companies over others!

Click Here To Access This Lesson Plan

Economics Lesson Plans For High School And Up

Fill ‘er up, Please

Source: EconEdLink, by Abbejean Kehler

Description: This lesson shows students how prices are constantly changing, using gasoline as the example. It also covers the basics of supply and demand, and how different components build into the final price.

Using Our Simulation: No prices move as much as stock prices! Have students take a look at the prices moving in their portfolio, and they can click the “News” button right on the open positions to see what is happening in the world to make that particular stock’s price change.

Click Here To Access This Lesson Plan

Supply And Demand

Source: EconEdLink, by Chad Mares

Description: Following Fad Toys, students can see how spikes in demand affect prices and the general supply of a good. It follows both the Hula-Hoop fad in the 1950’s, along with Silly Brandz from the last few years, drawing supply and demand charts to visualize the effects.

Using Our Simulation: Your students can also take a look at “Hot Stocks” that surge in value, and then just a few months later come crashing down as investors lose interest! One example is Alibaba stock (BABA), which had the largest IPO in history, followed by losing half of its value in the following months as investors moved elsewhere.

Click Here To Access This Lesson Plan