Today's Lesson

Today I taught a lesson on Oil in Southwest Asia. It went ALOT better than I thought it would. The learning target was: I can identify limited resources in scarcity with in an economy. As part of my introduction, I accessed students prior knowledge by doing a little initiating activity. I put about 30 pieces of candy inside a brown paper bag. Then I told students there were two rules. The first rule being that they can take as many pieces of candy as they want. The second rule was that they weren't aloud to eat it until I said so. I went from row to row having each student grabbing as much candy as they wanted out of the bag. I did this in three different classes and never once made it passes the third row (I'm telling ya those middle schoolers love their candy). Once the candy was gone, the students that didn't get any were a little upset at the unfair situation. I asked them probing questions like: Why is all the candy gone? I got answers such as: because there wasn't enough, because they took to much, because you said we could take as many pieces as we wanted and they took it all, etc. I explained to them that the unfair situation they just experienced is something that happens all over the world and it is known as scarcity. I wrote the word and a definition on the board. Scarcity occurs because human beings have unlimited wants and needs and live in a world with limited resources. I explained that they wanted more candy than what was available, so the candy is considered to be scarce. Next, I asked them to identify similar situations in which they have experienced scarcity in their lives. Students did a great job generating original ideas throughout all three classes that I taught. Some of them mentioned scarcity of their parents income and having to share with their siblings, others brought up the limited amount of technology available to them at school, etc. All in all I was very impressed and satisfied that it went so well!
BTW at the end of the activity I did make them share the candy :)