Economics 2014-15

Economics Class Information 2014-15

An understanding of the Science of Economics can help you to become wise in the following areas.

1. The use of money.

2. Investing for the future.

3. Making sound decisions.

4. Evaluating government programs and politician’s promises.

5. Being a steward of the gifts the Lord has blessed each one of us with.

6. The steps and the process of starting and running your own business.

Scope and Sequence of Economics

1. Chapter 1 What is Economics

2. Introducing the Stock Market Game

3. Chapters 2-3 Demand and Supply

4. Chapter 5 What is the Economic Problem

5. Chapter 4 Workings of a National Economy

6. Chapter 11 Measuring the Wealth of a Nation

Group Presentations:

As seniors you will be asked to thoroughly research and teach one of five topics to the rest of the class.  The following chapters will be taught by a group of 2 students (1 student will have an opportunity to create a lesson for 1 of the chapters) over the course of 2 days to the rest of the class. The five topics are:

Ch. 6 Economic Systems

Ch. 7 Forms of Business Ownership

Ch. 8 Market Structure and Competition & Ch. 9 Money and Banking

Ch. 13 Inflation

Ch. 16-17 Consumer Credit and Cash Management, Savings

The material covered in the presentations will be divided into three tests prepared by Mr. Demchak. They are:

1. Chapters 6-7                                                                                                                                  
2. Chapters 8 & and 9                                                                                          

3. Chapters 13, 16 and 17

Guidelines for a successful presentation

Each group is to research, study and prepare the subject matter so that they can teach it to the rest of the class. The text book will guide you concerning topics to cover, but you will have to gather and use updated information in your presentation. Each two day presentation worth 100 points will include:

1. An exhibit, power point, prezi or website format.

2. An oral presentation and discussion time.

3. A handout to be used by the class to take notes during the presentation and also as a study guide to review for a test on the material covered in the presentation.

4. Current data and information. The use of out dated data or information is not acceptable. Research will be required to obtain and current information.

5. An outline of your presentation ONE WEEK IN ADVANCE of the presentation.

6. Main economic terms defined and applied to the topic.

7. Evidence that you prioritized your topic. Including important and excluding nonessential data.

8. The lesson should have interactive and practical elements.

 Economics 2014-15 Syllabus

Things to bring everyday:

1. File folder- three ring binder to be used exclusively for history class.

• Notes/Handouts to be kept in the three ring binder.                                                                              
2. Textbook: Economics for Christian Schools Bob Jones University Press
3. Paper, Pencil, and Pen

• Failure to bring school supplies to class could result in disciplinary action or points off your grade.

General Rules for the Classroom

1. Follow directions the first time they are given.

2. Be in your seat when the bell rings.

3. Come to class with all materials mandated by the teacher.

4. Do not talk while the teacher or someone else is speaking.

5. Stay in your seats unless given permission to get up.

6. Keep hands, feet, and all objects to yourself.

Grading

A= 100-93 B= 92-85 C= 84-73 D= 72-65 F= 64 and below

How grade is determined

• 75% Tests, Quizzes, Projects/Essays/Oral reports/Stock Market Game

• 25% Homework Assignments

• Final Exam 1/7

Specific Rules

Journal Entries and “Hot Call”- I will also be using these devices from time to time to review homework or to review the lesson

I’m here to help- If you have problems or questions I am here to help. See me before school (I get here by 7:35), during the break, before class, at lunch, or after school. EMAIL demchakmj@aol.com

Absences- In the case of an ordinary absence, students have the number of days they are absent to make up work. All absent work should be turned in marked “absent” after an absence. In the case of absences due to more serious needs or retreats, I will work with you to arrange a plan by which you can make up missed assignments. Please initiate this effort if needed. Long term projects are due on the assigned date regardless of whether you can come to class that day.

Late work – Students can turn in any assignment late for half credit. The deadline for homework turned in late is the day of the chapter test that the assignment pertains to. No late work is accepted after the deadline – no exceptions. Please turn it in marked “Late”

Plagiarism – All work turned into me should be the students own work. Plagiarism includes but is not limited to: copying someone’s answers on a test, homework, or other assignment; letting someone copy answers on a test, homework, or other assignment; copying information from a book, magazine, encyclopedia, web site, or other source and portraying this information as something you have written. Working with someone else should not produce identical answers to every question. You are not prohibited from working with a friend, but you are expected to form separate responses.

Extra credit- Extra credit assignments will be given from time to time. Extra credit cannot exceed 3% of the student’s total points for the quarter. One extra credit assignment that students can take advantage of is as follows:

1. Using the pages assigned for homework, the student is to write the main idea for each subsection in the form of a topic sentence.

2. Write two supporting sentences for each topic sentence.

Chapter 2-3 Key Terms

Market*

Demand*

demand schedule*

law of demand*

diminishing marginal utility*

income effect

substitution effect

demand curve*

normal goods*

inferior goods

substitute good*

complementary good*

change in demand

Business firm*

Improve technology*

change in quantity demanded*

Supply*

supply schedule*

law of supply

supply curve*

change in supply*

change in quantity supplied*

Surplus*

Shortage*

Price ceiling*

Three functions of prices

Market equiibrium*

Demand shifts to the left or right*

Supply shifts to the left or right*

Economics Class Information 2012-13

An understanding of the Science of Economics can help you to become wise in the following areas.

1. The use of money.
2. Investing for the future.
3. Making sound decisions.
4. Evaluating government programs and politician’s promises.
5. Being a steward of the gifts the Lord has blessed each one of us with.
6. The steps and the process of starting and running your own business.

Scope and Sequence of Economics

1. Chapter 1 What is Economics
2. Introducing the Stock Market Game
3. Chapters 2-3 Demand and Supply
4. Chapter 5 What is the Economic Problem
5. Chapter 4 The Workings of a National Economy
6. Chapter 11 Measuring the Wealth of a Nation

Group Presentations:
The following chapters (6-9 and 13, 16-17) will be presented orally over two days to the class by a group of 2 students. Each group is to research, study and prepare the subject matter so that they can teach it to the rest of the class. The text book will guide you concerning topics to cover, but you will have to gather and use up to date informationin your presentation. Each two day presentation worth 100 points will include:

1. An exhibit, power point, or website format.

2. An oral presentation and discussion time.

3. A handout to be used by the class to take notes during the presentation and also as a study guide to review for a test on the material covered in the presentation.

4. Current data and information. The use of out dated data or information is not acceptable. Research will be required to obtain and present current information.

5. An outline of your presentation ONE WEEK IN ADVANCE of the presentation.

6. Main economic terms defined and applied to the topic.

7. Evidence that you prioritized your topic. Including important and excluding non essential data.

8. The lesson should have interactive and practical elements.

The 3 tests will cover (I will make the tests)

1. Chapters 6-7                                                                                                                                         2. Chapters 8 & and 9                                                                                                                              3.Chapters 13, 16 and 17

Ch. 6 Economic Systems

Ch. 7 Forms of Business Ownership

Ch. 8 & and 9 Market Structure and Competition- Money and Banking

Ch. 13 Inflation

Ch. 16-17 Cash Management, Savings, and Consumer Credit

Economics Syllabus

Things to bring everyday:

1. File folder- three ring binder to be used exclusively for history class.
• Notes/Handouts to be kept in the three ring binder. 2. Textbook: Economics for Christian Schools Bob Jones University Press
3. Paper, Pencil, and Pen
• Failure to bring school supplies to class could result in disciplinary action or points off your grade.

General Rules for the Classroom

1. Follow directions the first time they are given.
2. Be in your seat when the bell rings.
3. Come to class with all materials mandated by the teacher.
4. Do not talk while the teacher or someone else is speaking.
5. Stay in your seats unless given permission to get up.
6. Keep hands, feet, and all objects to yourself.

Grading

A= 100-93 B= 92-85 C= 84-73 D= 72-65 F= 64 and below

How grade is determined

• 75% Tests, Quizzes, Projects/Essays/Oral reports/Stock Market Game
• 25% Homework Assignments
• Final Exam 1/7

Specific Rules

Journal Entries and “Hot Call”- I will also be using these devices from time to time to review homework or to review the lesson

I’m here to help- If you have problems or questions I am here to help. See me before school (I get here by 7:35), during the break, before class, at lunch, or after school. EMAIL demchakmj@aol.com

Absences- In the case of an ordinary absence, students have the number of days they are absent to make up work. All absent work should be turned in marked “absent” after an absence. In the case of absences due to more serious needs or retreats, I will work with you to arrange a plan by which you can make up missed assignments. Please initiate this effort if needed. Long term projects are due on the assigned date regardless of whether you can come to class that day.

Late work – Students can turn in any assignment late for half credit. The deadline for homework turned in late is the day of the chapter test that the assignment pertains to. No late work is accepted after the deadline – no exceptions. Please turn it in marked “Late”

Plagiarism – All work turned into me should be the students own work. Plagiarism includes but is not limited to: copying someone’s answers on a test, homework, or other assignment; letting someone copy answers on a test, homework, or other assignment; copying information from a book, magazine, encyclopedia, web site, or other source and portraying this information as something you have written. Working with someone else should not produce identical answers to every question. You are not prohibited from working with a friend, but you are expected to form separate responses.

Extra credit- Extra credit assignments will be given from time to time. Extra credit cannot exceed 3% of the student’s total points for the quarter. One extra credit assignment that students can take advantage of is as follows:
1. Using the pages assigned for homework, the student is to write the main idea for each subsection in the form of a topic sentence.
2. Write two supporting sentences for each topic sentence.

Senior Roundtable

Objective: To present for discussion, political and cultural topics from a Biblical point of view. Our main source of information will be World magazine. It examines the main issues of our time from a Biblical perspective. You can also use worldmag.com for reference and additional research. I have also posted additional references on my class blog.

Format: Each issue of World includes articles that focus on culture, international or domestic stories (Feature Articles), the main story, and opinion essays (editorials). World is published bi- monthly. Each student will be assigned articles (1 per week) from one of the four topics with each issue. We will discuss the articles in each issue over the course of a two week period of time.
Starting the week of January 31
• Monday’s – Culture and Education articles
• Tuesday’s- Feature Articles
• Wednesday's – The Main Story
• Thursday’s – Editorials
• Fridays – Political Cartoons and Articles not discussed Monday-Thursday

Your grade will be based on your contribution to your individual presentation, your written report and your contribution to class discussions.

Group 1
Group 2
Group 3
Group 4
Group 5


Week of
Jan. 31 1) Culture&Ed 2) Feature Articles 3) Main Story 4) Editorials 5) Cartoons

Feb. 7 1) Cartoons 2) Culture &Ed 3) Feature Articles 4) Main Story 5) Editorials

Feb 21 1) Editorials 2) Cartoons 3) Culture&Ed 4) Feature Articles 5) Main Story

Mar. 7 1) Main Story 2) Editorials 3) Cartoons 4) Culture&Ed 5) Feature Articles

Mar. 21 1) Feature Articles 2) Main Story 3) Editorials 4) Cartoons 5) Culture&Ed

Apr. 4 1) Culture&Ed 2) Feature Articles 3) Main Story 4) Editorials 5) Cartoons

Economics 2011

The proper understanding of the Science of Economics can help you to become wise in the following areas.


1. The use of money.

2. Investing for the future.

3. Making sound decisions.

4. Evaluating government programs and Politician’s promises.

5. Being a steward of the gifts the Lord has blessed each one of us with.

6. The steps and the process of starting and running your own business.


Scope and Sequence of Economics
1. Chapter 1 What is Economics


2. Introducing the Stock Market Game


3. Chapters 2-3 Demand and Supply


4. Chapter 5 What is the Economic Problem


5. Chapter 4 The Workings of a National Economy


6. Chapter 11 Measuring the Wealth of a Nation


Group Presentations:

The following chapters (6-9 and 13-18) will be presented orally over two days to the class by a group of 3-4 students. Each two day presentation worth 100 points will include:


1. An exhibit, power point, or website format.

2. An oral presentation and discussion time.

3. A handout to be used by the class to take notes during the presentation and as a study guide to review for a test on the material covered in the presentation.

4. Current data and information. The use of out dated data or information is not acceptable.

5. An outline of your presentation ONE WEEK IN ADVANCE of the presentation.

6. Main economic terms defined and applied to the topic.


7. Evidence that you prioritized your topic. Including important and excluding non essential data.

8. The lesson should have interactive and practical elements.



The 3 tests will cover Chapters 6-9 Chapters 13&15 Chapters 16-18

Ch. 6 Economic Systems Thursday and Friday November 11 and 12



Ch. 7 Forms of Business Ownership Monday and Tuesday November15 and 16



Ch. 8 & 9 Market Structure and Competition & Money Wednesday and Thursday November 17 and 18


Ch. 13 Inflation


Ch. 15 Budgeting and Buying


Ch. 16-17 Cash Management, Savings, and Consumer Credit


Ch. 18 Financial Planning- Insuring your Home, Auto, Health, and Life

Rules of The Stock Market Game Program
1. Each team begins the simulation with $100,000 in cash and may borrow additional funds. How much you may borrow is dependent upon the equity in your account. Interest is charged weekly on negative cash balances at an annual rate of 7.00%, and credited weekly on positive cash balances at an annual rate of 2.00%. Interest is calculated daily, then summed for the week (Monday through Sunday) and posted on the following Tuesday. If the Monday before the Tuesday posting is a holiday, then posting will be Wednesday and interest will be for Monday through Monday (8 days) and the next week's posting will be for six days (Tuesday through Sunday). The daily rate is based upon a 365 day year. Daily Interest = Cash * Appropriate Interest Rate (as a decimal) / 365. Bond coupon payments will be posted when due.

2. You may trade only stocks and mutual funds listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market and the New York Stock Exchange that have traded within the last 7 days. Some competitive regions may also trade a pre-determined group of Municipal, Corporate, and Treasury bonds.

3. End of Day Game transactions are priced at market daily closing prices. These prices can be found in the next day's newspaper or by using the price quote facilities of SMG. Real Time Game transactions are priced at the market price at the time of entry. Bond prices are available only on the SMG website.

All Mutual Fund transactions are treated as End of Day transactions and priced at that day's closing price. All bond transactions are treated as Real Time transactions. This applies to both End of Day and Real Time games.

Transactions entered with a limit price will not be held past the initial attempt to price the transaction. This applies to End of Day or Real Time Games.

4. All Stock and Mutual Fund buy orders must be a minimum of 100 shares. Sell for Stocks and Mutual Funds orders for less than 100 shares will be permitted. Municipal and Corporate Bond orders must be bought and sold in $1000 increments only. Treasury Bonds must be bought and sold in $100 increments only.

5. SMG does not permit buying stocks or mutual funds that trade below $5 per share the day before and the day of execution. Such orders will be rejected. Sell transactions for existing long positions where transactions are executed at closing or real time prices will be accepted, even if the price is less than $5.00 per share. (There are a number of reasons for this rule. Low priced stocks, known as penny stocks, are very risky and volatile investments. Accordingly, brokers will not permit their customers to trade such securities on margin, just as SMG does not. Also, penny stocks tend to have very shallow markets and their prices move sharply with large orders, unlike SMG where transactions are executed at closing or real time prices regardless of order size). Only Bonds provided by SMG may be bought and sold. These bonds will be investment grade only with S&P ratings of "BBB" or higher.

6. Trades can only be processed in whole and will be rejected if sufficient buying power does not exist to execute the entire order.

7. A 2% broker's fee is charged for all transactions. For example, if you buy 100 shares of a stock at $10 per share, you must pay the 2% of $1000 or $20. On Sell or Shortsell transactions an SEC fee of $5.60 per million gross rounded to the nearest penny is also charged. Bond buyers will also be charged for accrued interest since the last coupon payment. Bond sellers will receive accrued interest since the last coupon payment.

8. The Game is run Monday through Friday. Teams may trade on any day the participating stock markets are open. Orders may be entered 7 days a week during hours the system is available.

9. Stock trades entered after close of market (4:00 PM ET) will be priced at next day's closing price for the End of Day Game and at opening price for the Real Time Game. Bonds will be given last price displayed in the system and Mutual funds will be priced at next day's closing price.

10. Teams do not have to liquidate their portfolios at the end of The Game. Winners will be determined on the basis of either equity or the % return above/below S&P 500 Growth. (Some states may use additional criteria to determine winners).

Short sell/short cover rules
11. All short sell orders must be for a minimum of 100 shares. Short cover orders for less than 100 shares will be permitted. Open ended mutual funds can not be short sold. Held short sell positions are marked to the market daily and the resulting gain or loss is added or subtracted from cash. No mark to market trasactions are posted in transaction history.

12. SMG does not permit short sells on stocks or mutual funds that trade below $5.00 per share. Such orders will be rejected. Short cover transactions for existing short positions will be accepted, even if the price is less than $5.00 per share. (See Rule #5 for an explanation). Mutual Funds and Bonds can not be short sold.

Portfolios
13. A record of a team's portfolio and transactions will be available daily. A team will not receive a portfolio nor be listed in regional rankings until its initial transaction is entered successfully. A student can only be assigned to ONE portfolio per game period.

14. No back posting of trades will be done for trades of securities not contained within the SMG Security Table. Once the missing security has been added to the Security Table the security can then be traded. The same rule applies to trades rejected if they are incorrectly pricing below $5. Once the pricing has been corrected the security can be traded. Only Bonds listed in the SMG can be traded. No post dating of trades due to the system being unavailable.

15. Stock and cash dividends and stock splits are automatically computed into portfolios. Every effort is made to simulate as closely to real life as possible a variety of other corporate actions (mergers, acquisitions, spinoffs, etc.), which may include the standard three-day settlement period. In this case, it may be necessary to suspend trading of a given security until the action can be completed. Canadian stocks trading on US exchanges cannot be traded between a split's record date and its payout date. It is the responsibility of teams to check their portfolios for accuracy and notify their Coordinator by email of any problems that are encountered.

16. Participants of the end of day pricing game may delete pending transactions prior to market close except bonds which are processed as real time orders.

Additional rules
17. Any violation of the rules of the SMG may result in the invalidation of a transaction. Repeated violation of the rules may result in the disqualification of a team.

18. Additional rules have been developed in some states and, if applicable, have been included in your Coordinator's Information Page. It is the responsibility of your team to learn and abide by all rules.

19. You must maintain a total equity position that is greater than or equal to 30% of the current value of your current holdings. If you don't you will receive a margin call.

Code of participation
1. SMG advisors must be responsible adults 18 years of age or older. In no case may they be a matriculated student in grades K-12.

2. SMG advisors will ensure that every participant on their team(s) has read and understands the SMG Rules and the Code of Participation.

3. Teams that do not comply with the SMG Code of Participation will be removed from the portfolio rankings.

4. The authority to remove a team from the rankings lies solely with the team's SMG coordinator organization.

5. Each team is responsible for any opening or closing transactions entered into its portfolio.

6. Teams may not enter transactions into portfolios other than their own. (Please note that when a team asserts that a transaction was entered by a non-member of that team, the team will nevertheless be ranked based on their portfolio's total equity, which will include the challenged transaction.)

7. Only transactions stored on the SMG database will be recognized for purposes of evaluating portfolio total equity. Teams are responsible for maintaining the secrecy of their portfolio password.

8.FIE will be responsible for the accuracy of the market data. It is the responsibility of teams to report any major price discrepancies found in their portfolios. Failure to do so may result in disqualification from the competition. In extreme cases of continued disregard for this rule, FIE reserves the right to delete teams from the game. If a team believes a stock price or other information is incorrect, the team advisor shall notify their Coordinator by email.

9. In the event of an error on the part of FIE and/or coordinator organization(s), their liability to a participant shall be limited to the refund of registration or other fees paid.