Teaching economic decision making in the intermediate grades

Economic factors increasingly influence, even control, our well-being. This influence and control includes the well-being of children as well. Yet economics is viewed traditionally as a subject area much too difficult for elementary school children. Rarely does the subject appear as a major part of the elementary school social studies curriculum. Instead, economics generally is reserved for secondary school students then frequently as an elective. Is it any wonder that we suffer from high levels of economic illiteracy in this country? Nine-to-twelve-year-old children form an important consumer group in our nation's economy. They spend millions of dollars annually for junk food, records, fast food, entertainment, clothes, toys, and a host of other goods and services. Manufacturers pump millions of dollars into advertising directed at this age group. Television advertising during the after school, Saturday, and Sunday programming period decidedly orients itself toward this age group. Yet most of these

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