What do you need to make a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich? Most people would probably answer “Bread, peanut butter, and jelly.” Right? Well, if you’re economist—or learning to think like one—it’s a little more complicated than that.
On Day 10 of Financial Literacy Month, kids will learn to think like budding economists with help from FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™. You can use the familiar scenario of making PB&J sandwich to explain the many types of resources that go into making one simple sandwich.
First, ask kids to think about the TYPES of ingredients or resources that it takes to make even a simple sandwich. Explain that ingredients are actually resources and that there are lots of different types.
Natural resources are materials or substances that come from nature, in this case peanuts, wheat, and fruits.
Human resources are all the people who make a good or product, in this case, the sandwich maker as well as those who harvest the ingredients.
It gets even “stickier” as you delve into the ideas of capital resources and intermediate goods are goods produced and used to make other goods and services. There is an important difference between the two: Intermediate goods are used up in the process of producing something—for example, in bread making, flour is an intermediate good because you can only use it to make one loaf of bread. Capital resources can be used over and over—using the bread making example again, an electric mixer with a dough hook is a capital resource because you can use it again and again to make many loaves of bread.
Let’s Get Cooking!
Once you explain these four types of resources, it’s easy to apply these ideas to the PB&J example and have kids figure out what you’ll need in each resource category to make the sandwich:
Natural Resources:
Wheat – to make bread
Peanuts and oil to make peanut butter
Fruit and sugar to make jelly
Human Resources:
Sandwich maker
Parent, student, or teacher
Capital Resources:
Tools or machines used in production
Examples: knife, jar, plate, spoon
Intermediate Goods:
Goods that are used up during production
Examples: peanut butter, bread, jelly
Break It Down
Now have kids complete their own lists of resources for another familiar scenario, such as making a pizza, selling Girl Scout cookies, putting on a show, or forming a soccer team. Tell them to be sure to break down natural resources into their simplest forms.
For example, a soccer team needs natural resources in the form of green space or a field on which to play and rubber (and other materials) to make the soccer ball, human resources in terms of a coach, team members, and even spectators, capital resources in terms of a factory to make the uniforms and soccer ball, and intermediate goods such as snacks and hydrating drinks for during and after practice, but in the case of a soccer game, these are really “full-consumed” goods since most teams devour their snacks right there on the field!
How many resources can you think of in each category? When using this activity in a classroom setting, you can add a dash of competition by dividing into small groups and challenging each team to listen to the other presentations and see if they can spot any additional resources.
Visit Us Every Day in April
Tomorrow we’ll continue Financial Literacy Month with a close look at the economics strand of the FUTURES™ program.
For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.