High school economics can be a fun class to teach, but it can be difficult to make it an engaging course if you’re new to the teaching profession, you’re new to teaching economics, or you’re teaching multiple social studies subjects. I had a tough experience the first time I taught economics because I was also assigned to teach other social studies subjects (lol), but teaching economics doesn’t have to be difficult for you! In this blog, I’ll give you a run down of my High School Economics Projects Bundle.

This bundle is a collection of 6 economics projects that I created for my class. You can use this resource in your classroom to enhance your economics course! The materials in these projects can be printed and used in your classrooms right away. Your students will enjoy these projects and won’t realize that they’re learning economic concepts along the way!

This bundle will make teaching economics more fun for your students and will make prepping for economics easier for you! You can create lessons that build up to each of the projects! 

So let’s dive into these projects!

Overview of Projects in this Bundle

This bundle includes 6 economics projects, each project is geared towards high school economics classes. Below are the 6 projects with brief descriptions: 

• Budgeting Project for High School Students
  • In this budgeting project, students apply their understanding of wants and needs as they make decisions about how to spend their money in a way that will accommodate their lifestyle choices.
• The Economics of the Coronavirus Cost Benefit Analysis Project
  • In this project, students apply their understanding of cost benefit analysis to research how businesses, people, and the government were confronted with scarcity and weighed the cost and benefits of shutting down the economy.
• Supply and Demand Create Your Own Music Festival Project
  • In this project, students apply their understanding of supply and demand to sell concert tickets to their music festival.
• Create Your Own Economy Project
  • In this project, students create a proposal for the type of economy for 50 survivors of a zombie apocalypse.
• Financial Literacy College Research Project
  • In this project, students research the financial and social benefits of going to college and various methods of paying for college. 
• Create Your Own Business Plan Economics Projects
  • In this project, students apply their understanding of supply and demand and business entities to create a business. Students will present their business to their peers who will decide whether or not they will invest in their company.

Budgeting Project

This Budgeting Project is one of my favorites projects because it covers basic economics topics! It helps students make connections between their own lives and the economic concepts of scarcity, choices, wants, needs, opportunity-costs, cost-benefits, and trade-offs. 

In this project students are given a hypothetical scenario to get them into it! The hypothetical situation is that the students work full time and earn $2,947 and have $7,000 in their savings accounts. Given their situation students must look for housing, buy furniture, and figure out their transportation needs (buying a car or taking public transportation). 

Students must also decide what to do with their leisurely time. For instance, will they go out to dinner with friends? Watch a movie? Or stay home?

Then, students must reflect on their monthly expenses and whether or not their lifestyle choices fit their monthly income. Finally, students explain how economics relates to their everyday life and what they learned from completing the project! You can read more about this project here. 

Supply and Demand Create Your Own Music Festival Project

Another fun project is this Supply and Demand Create Your Own Music Festival Line up Project. This is a great project to use in your classroom because teaching supply and demand can be very dry and boring. However, with this project, students use their creativity to make music festival lineups that they think will attract customers. The goal is to create music festival lineups that will make the most profit!

After students have created their music festival lineup they conduct in-class surveys to identify the demand of their music festival tickets. The in-class survey gets students up and around the room and interacting with each other. They may forget that they’re learning economics! Next, students plot the information from their surveys to identify the equilibrium price. 

This project is a great way to tie in the economic concepts of supply, demand, equilibrium price, shortage, and surplus and the determinants of demand! You can read more about my project here. 

Create Your Own Business Plan Project

Another project I enjoy is this Create Your Own Business Plan Project. This project hones in on a student’s entrepreneurial skills! In this project, students use problem solving skills to create businesses that they will present to investors! This project is split up into different parts so that students can complete it with ease.

Students write business plans, choose the best business entity that will fit their needs, apply supply and demand by describing situations that will increase or decrease demand for their products/services, and present their businesses to their peers!

This project is a great way to tie in the economic concepts of trade-offs, opportunity costs, incentives, scarcity, utility, cost-benefit analysis, business entities, and supply and demand. 

Conclusion

Incorporating projects into your economics class is a great way to make teaching economics fun and exciting for you and your students. My High School Economics Bundle will help to transform your economics course and make preparing for economics easy for you! The documents in this resource can be printed and used right away. The projects will help you backwards plan as you design lessons that lead to each of the projects found in this bundle! 

Happy teaching!