CITIZENSHIP STRAND IV:
RESOURCE ALLOCATION
(DECISION MAKING AND RESOURCES)
Items in the Resource Allocation strand ask questions that examine basic economic concepts as they relate to people’s everyday lives.
10. Identify the factors of production (land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship) needed to produce various goods and services.
What is involved in the production of the goods and services that people use? This learning outcome requires students to identify the four basic factors of production — land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship. Land refers to productive resources occurring in nature such as water, soil, trees, and minerals. Labor consists of the talents, training, and skills of people that contribute to the production of goods and services. Capital refers to productive resources made by past human efforts and includes resources such as buildings, machinery, vehicles, and tools. Entrepreneurship consists of the activities of profit-seeking decision makers who make decisions about which economic activities to undertake and how they should be undertaken.
Students should be able to identify specific factors of production involved in the examples of production provided by the test items. Students could be given an example and asked to identify the factor of production involved. Students could be given a factor of production and asked to identify an example of that factor. Items could refer to pictures or diagrams as well as to written information.
11. Name the resources needed to produce various goods and services, classify each resource by the factors of production, or suggest alternative uses for those factors.
This learning outcome uses examples of production to examine the use of resources. It stresses applications of the factors of production in specific situations. Students also need to appreciate that any given resource can be used in a variety of ways.
Students could be presented with common goods and services (e.g., a glass) and asked to identify particular resources needed to produce them (e.g., sand). Students could be given a productive resource (e.g., aluminum) and asked to identify a good or service (e.g., cans) that could be produced with the resource.
Some items could ask students to examine a resource used in the production of a good or a service and to identify the factor of production involved. Students could be asked to identify examples of a given factor of production in a short explanation about how a good or service is produced.
Factors of production can be used in many different ways. Sand can be used to produce glass, sandpaper, or concrete. Another variation on this learning outcome could ask students to suggest alternative uses for various factors of production being used in particular ways.
12. Classify various economic activities as examples of production or consumption.
People help to produce and consume goods and services. Production is the act of combining land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship to make goods and services. Consumption refers to the purchase or use of goods and services.
Students should be able to classify or categorize examples of production (e.g., a worker on an assembly line) and consumption (e.g., pumping gasoline at a self-service pump into a car). Students could be asked to examine an activity and to indicate if the activity is an example of production or an example of consumption.
Phone: 330-945-5600, Fax: 330-945-6222