UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 37, Page 3
July 22, 1993
Innovative games offer teachers new insights into economics

     Twenty-six high school students and 28 high school economics teachers
from across the country gained new insights into an old subject at the
University of Delaware during the Foundation for Teaching Economics'
Leadership Seminar held July 11-18 on the Newark campus.
     Through innovative games and role playing, participants balanced
national budgets, took part in a cartel, tried to buy political influence
and generally learned how economic principles affect all areas of their
lives.
     The students, all Hugh O'Brien Youth Foundation participants, said
they didn't know much about economics when they entered the program but
were interested in the leadership component. At week's end, many of them
were considering economics as a career. For their part, the teachers-from
as far away as Poland and as close as Delaware-said they would return to
their home schools rejuvenated and full of new ideas to incorporate into
their classrooms.
     "We've learned that economics is the process of achieving goals and
attaining goods for a cost. You may have to sacrifice and go after the next
best alternative to obtain what you're going after," one student said.
     'We've learned that economics affects everyone," another added.
     In the budget game, the students and teachers were divided into groups
of l0 and assigned to a country with a particular economy-a farming nation,
a defense country, an oil-producing kingdom, for example. Each country had
25,000 people and a national budget of $100 million.
     Within each country, the participants were assigned roles-everything
from an Air Force colonel to a single mother of three children. They then
set to work to create a balanced budget that best addressed the country's
needs. The students said they were surprised at what they learned.
     "As a businessman, I really didn't mind sacrificing the environment to
pollution to produce my product," one student said. "In balancing the
budget, I had a hard time with the doctor who was always pushing
environmental concerns."
     "In our defense-oriented country, we increased defense spending by 20
percent," another student said. "It was simple to find the money. We just
took it from education!"
     "We learned how hard it is to write a budget, how difficult it is to
work with people with so many varying opinions and how many times people
have to go away unhappy," another said.
     In the lobbying game, four students were selected as political
congressional candidates.
     Five students were assigned the role of lobbyists and given $l00 each.
The remaining students and teachers were citizens who were given $25 each
and told to use it to their best advantage to persuade the candidates to
vote for their cause.
     "I spent my money on two politicians and neither of them voted the way
they promised to," one woman student moaned.
     "It was really clear to us that money doesn't just talk. It shouts out
loud!" another said.
     "It was interesting that with all the people wanting their
attention-with all the people shouting at them-the politicians never even
looked at the issues.
     It was a real lesson in fairness," another said.
     In the cartel game the students, all barons of the oil industry, had
to vote for X or Y and would lose or gain money on the probability of X and
Y winning. The game illustrated the principle of producing less oil to sell
it for more, but participants quickly realized how little they trusted
their "business partners."
     Everyone ended up losing money, and even the wining team-the one with
the most money at the end of the game- walked away with less money than it
had to start with.
     "We really saw greed as a motivating factor," a student said.
     Participating teachers said they were impressed with the exercises and
how important it is to "become facilitators of learning experiences rather
than lecturers."
                                        -Beth Thomas