Take a 10-minute guided tour of FRED, the St. Louis Fed's free economic data website. Simple step-by-step activities equip users to find and graph economic data, mastering FRED's look and feel. The guide also shows how to customize, save, and share a FRED graph.

Students work in groups to examine excerpts from primary source documents. They identify social and economic factors affecting specific categories of people when the Great Migration accelerated in 1916 to 1917: black migrant workers from the South, southern planters, southern small-farm farmers, northern industrialists, agents, and white immigrant workers in the North. Each student group creates a "perspectives page" to post for a gallery walk where students analyze the causes of the Great Migration and the changes it brought to both the North and South. Students also discuss the specific economic factors that influenced the Great Migration: scarcity, supply, demand, surplus, shortage, and opportunity cost. Using the PACED decisionmaking model, they analyze the alternatives and criteria of potential migrants.

In the story, Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday, Alexander receives a dollar from his grandparents that he plans to save, but he spends it all, a little at a time. In this lesson, students count by twos to fill a container with 100 pennies. They are asked whether 100 pennies is the same amount of money as one dollar. They listen to the story and as Alexander spends his money, students come up and remove the correct number of pennies from a container. At the end of the story, students are again asked if 100 pennies is the same amount of money as one dollar. Students discuss the choices that Alexander made and give advice on how he could save his money to reach his goal of buying a walkie-talkie.

This online activity shows how to use FRED, the Federal Reserve's free online economic data website, to analyze changes in real gross domestic product (GDP) and GDP makeup over time. Following simple instructions, you will locate spending data for the individual components of real GDP, and then combine them into a highly informative area graph. You will also use FRED's ability to stack data and see how trade—imports and exports—contributes to GDP. The resulting customized graph will let you see how economic output varies from year to year.

If you look at what psychologists consider to be high-level stressors, you'll find a list of about 40 life events. We have no control over many of these events, but for more than half, we do. So much of our stress and success in life depends on the decisions we make. In this short course, your students will learn the economic underpinnings of the need to make decisions, why every decision bears a cost, and how to make informed decisions.

Students learn that bankruptcy is a federal court proceeding designed to help individuals address debt problems and to provide fair treatment to creditors. They learn the six different types of bankruptcy; however, the lesson focuses on the two types of bankruptcies used mostly by consumers: Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. They analyze bankruptcy terms and learn the similarities and differences between Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 procedures. They also participate in an activity that requires them to work collaboratively to match a bankruptcy step with its correct description. As an assessment, they review scenarios and suggest the best bankruptcy option. This lesson assumes that students are familiar with credit, uses of credit, types of credit, and basic credit terminology.

In this lesson, students listen to a story about Beatrice, a little girl from Uganda, who receives a goat and the impact of that goat on her family. They learn what it means to save and use estimation to decide whether or not people have enough money to reach a savings goal. They also work through a set of problems requiring that they identify how much additional money people must save to reach their goals. Students learn what opportunity cost is and identify the opportunity costs of savings decisions made by Beatrice and her family.

Students will learn that money is an invention. They will read and analyze an essay focusing primarily on one aspect of Ben Franklin's life his work as a printer and how he was an inventor and entrepreneur who also promoted the use of currency in the United States. Students will cite specific textual evidence regarding problems and solutions and will answer questions and complete a timeline. By using evidence and information gleaned from text, students will write a fictitious social media post defending the selection of Ben Franklin's portrait for the $100 note.

In this lesson, students hear a story about Brother and Sister Bear, who seem to want everything. The little cubs learn that they must make choices because they cannot have everything they want. Students follow along with the story by completing an activity listing all of the goods that will satisfy the cubs' wants. The students then take part in an activity to construct a word web and graphic organizer (table) to identify goods that will satisfy a want. They will make a choice, identify the problem of scarcity, and recognize their opportunity cost.

In this lesson, students make a choice about what they want to eat for dinner, but then they are asked to trade with a partner and discuss whether they like their new dinner better. Based on this discussion, they learn about preferences and how they help us make choices. Students then hear a story about a little bear who looks at many hats to see if he can find a new one he likes. Students will relate key concepts from the lesson to the story and create a hat to discuss their own choices and preferences with the class.

In this lesson, students hear a story about two little bears whose parents use several figures of speech relating to money. Students draw a picture of a bank and write a caption explaining their illustration. Students follow along with the story by listening for additional figures of speech and how they relate to the concepts of banks and interest. The students also construct a story map of an event in the story relating to why people choose to keep their money in banks.

Budgeting is the most basic and most important tool in anyone's financial toolbox. With this resource, students are given the hands-on opportunity to create budgets for fictional "Regan" during her sophomore year in nursing school, and, later, as a recent graduate with an apartment and a new car. Using either Microsoft® Excel or Google Docs, the students download our budgeting tool with space for their own budget, as well as the examples they created by establishing Regan's budget.

In this lesson, students will explore a market basket of goods and services and determine what is in each category in the market basket. Students learn that the consumer price index (CPI) is made up of market basket goods and services for which the prices are compared each month to determine if the price of any of the items has changed and if there has been inflation. Students will engage in role-play scenarios to understand the effects of inflation.

Capital markets include the stock and bond markets, and this is where businesses turn for funding when they need investors. In this course, students will learn how capital markets keep the economy moving and how they provide opportunities for businesses, entrepreneurs and investors to achieve their goals.

Cards, Cars and Currency is a curriculum unit that challenges students to become involved in three specific areas of personal finance: credit cards, debit cards and purchasing a car.

Cards, Cars and Currency is a set of personal finance programs that encourages participants to learn about three areas of personal finance: credit cards, debit cards and purchasing a car. Cards, Cars and Currency includes five individual programs that can be used together or individually to enhance personal finance learning.

There are two sides to a budget—income and expenses. When asked how to best balance a budget, people often respond by saying to reduce or eliminate expenses. In this lesson, students choose a car and a housing option and, using these expenses, determine if the income they earn from the occupation they’ve chosen will be sufficient when other expenses are added. If they determine it is insufficient, they seek ways they could increase the income side of the budget by improving their human capital.

Students listen to a story about P.B. who thinks money is missing from the peanut butter jar on his window ledge. In addition to basic concepts of saving and spending, students learn currency equivalency and some measurement concepts.

In this lesson, students learn the definition of gross domestic product (GDP) and the four expenditure categories of GDP. Then, they participate in a readers’ theater about castaways on an island who learn about GDP. Students record examples of items produced on the island that are examples of consumer, government, and investment spending. They recognize that, without trade, there is no net export category for the island.

Students read A Chair for My Mother, about a little girl and her family who save money to buy a chair after their furniture is destroyed in a fire. Students learn that characters in the book are human resources who save part of the income they earn. Students identify other human resources, discuss how their work allows them to earn income and name strategies that will help them reach a savings goal. (Book written by Vera B. Williams / ISBN: 068804074-8)