Social Studies Essential Questions About Economics
Essential questions are an important part of your social studies course. If used correctly, they help organize your curriculum and connect content across various units and time periods.
This resource is a set of social studies essential questions related to economics that you can use when planning curriculum units and lessons in your social studies class
List of Essential Questions About Economics
Why are some people rich and some people poor?
How do you explain the fact that some people succeed while others do not? Are these factors within their control or not?
What do Americans owe each other?
Do we have an obligation to help each other or should society be "dog eat dog"? Is there an obligation to give to charities or to support other people through government policies? Is it possible for someone to make it on their own without help or support with others?
Is the American economy fair?
Are your explanations for why some people become wealthy and others do not fair? Does everyone have an equal chance to be successful or are people advantaged or disadvantaged in certain ways?
Use These Essential Questions in a Lesson
One way that you can incorporate these essential questions into your class is to use them as the basis for a lesson. This is a great introductory lesson to begin the school year to feel out your students, learn about them, and get them thinking.
Use each of the three questions as a discussion prompt and have a class discussion. You can also incorporate other activities like Think-Pair-Share or A/B writing. You can easily take one of the questions and use it as a writing prompt for a homework assignment, as well.
This powerpoint will help you facilitate the discussion, and you can read more facilitating a class discussion of these essential questions about conflict here.
Use These Essential Questions in Curricular Design
Another way that you can incorporate these essential questions into your social studies class is to use it as a way to tie together different curricular units and time periods. Select historical topics and information to emphasize that relates to these questions and refer back to these essential questions over time.
Then, use these questions as a form of assessment. In each unit, you can ask students to answer the question based on information they gained in that unit. At the end of the year, you can also use this as the basis of an essay. That essay could either explore the topic over time or it could ask the students to reconsider their opinions from the beginning of the year.