Resources to help your students visualize economics
Looking for opinions on the economy or economic indicators? California Council on Economic Education, CCEE, offers these links to blogs, well-known economists and news sources to help you sort through current events and provide context for your students.
Register for CCEE’s weekly economic updates for timely information and ideas to help explain economics to your middle and high school students using real information that connects with what’s going on in their world today.
| Concept | Link | Brief Description |
| Micro Economics | ||
| Economic systems | http://bigthink.com/ideas/21270 | Map of North Korea/South Korea at night |
| Supply and demand | http://www.cagle.com/ | Calvin and Hobbs and other cartoons by topic |
| Economic systems and policy, political and market freedom, trade and global markets economic growth | http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ commandingheights/lo/index.html |
Video series with a comprehensive overview of global economic history from WWI through 2002; Six-hour video narrative divided into short chapters |
| Property rights/rule of law; economic systems, competition and innovation, free market economy, entrepreneurship | http://www.izzit.org/products/index.php | Videos and online current event lessons; requires membership (free); sample videos include: The Price System, Yours and Mine: The Lesson of 1623, Unintended Consequences, The Ultimate Resource: Pennies a Day, The Road to Prosperity, Everyone’s Space |
| Human capital | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIDLIwlzkgY | Did-You-Know Video stresses the importance of one’s own human capital and how it affects the world and the affects of technology on lives worldwide |
| Macro Economics | ||
| Income inequality | http://www.slate.com/id/2266174/ | Series of 10 graphs/charts on income inequality/distribution |
| Unemployment/ employment |
http://www.slate.com/id/2216238/ | Vanishing Employment Across the Country map; animation of unemployment numbers for countries in the U.S., numbers represent the change in amount of people employed in the previous year |
| http://www.latoyaegwuekwe.com/ geographyofarecession.html |
Geography of a Recession; animation of unemployment rates by U.S. countries from Jan 2007–Aug 2010 | |
| http://www.buzzfeed.com/scott/ us-unemployment-visualization |
Graphical representation of unemployment rates with interactive map to choose states and cities to chart | |
| http://www.bls.gov/data/#maps | Bureau of Labor Statistics; unemployment rates by state, choose year and month to generate map | |
| Economic data | https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/ the-world-factbook/ |
World Fact Book; information on the government, economy for 266 world entities; drill down to a variety of facts about a country |
| http://www.worldmapper.org/ | Unusual representation of data, territories are realized based on subject of interest | |
| http://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/index.php | International Monetary Fund Data Mapper; variety of economic statistics/indicators with graphs and maps side by side | |
| http://www.factfinder.census.gov/home/ saff/main.html?_lang=en |
U.S. Census Bureau; demographic data with economic implications | |
| Government spending | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWt8hTayupE | Obama Budget Cuts Visualization, YouTube video, 10,000 Pennies Channel, visualization of the budget cuts in relation to the total budget using pennies |
| http://www.usdebtclock.org/ | National Debt Clock; continual updates to U.S. national debt, U.S. federal spending, federal tax revenue and more | |
| http://www.babylontoday.com/ national_debt_clock.htm |
National Debt Clock; other graphs available but it takes some careful “weeding through” | |
| http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html | What does a trillion dollars look like? Visual representation of $100, $10,000, $1 million, $100 million, $1 billion and $1 trillion | |
| http://www.concordcoalition.org/learn/ educators/penny-game |
The Penny Game. Objective: learn how much the federal government collected in revenues and borrowed in fiscal year 2008 and how those funds were spent | |
| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tda0-cDyD0U | Bailouts and Bull, Part 1 of 6 (approx. 8 mins) John Stoessel special on government bailouts/stimulus packages and government spending | |
| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk | Fear the Boom and Bust, a Hayek vs. Keynes Rap Anthem, YouTube Vdeo, EconStories | |
| Keynesian Theory |
http://www.frbsf.org/education/activities/ treasurehunt/index.html |
Great Economist Treasure Hunt; Economic timeline and great economists and their time quiz |
| Monetary Policy, Credit Crisis | http://www.frbsf.org/education/activities/ chairman/index.html |
So You Want to Be in Charge of Monetary Policy? Students take charge of a simulated economy by taking on the role of the Federal Reserve (federal funds rate) |
| http://www.stlouisfed.org/inplainenglish/ default.html |
In Plain English, Making Sense of the Federal Reserve; animated tour of the Federal Reserve System | |
| Trade | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HMjqQaWqes | Outsourcing Bad for America? 20/20 John Stoessel segment that asks, “Is outsourcing always bad?” |
| http://www.usatradeonline.gov/ |
USA Trade Online, the official source for U.S. Merchandise Trade Data | |
| Economic Systems and Policy, Political and Market Freedom, Trade and Global Markets, Economic Growth | http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/ lo/index.html |
Commanding Heights video series offers a comprehensive overview of the global economic history from WWI through 2002. Six-hour narratives divided into short chapters. |
| Other | ||
| Various Macro and Micro Topics | http://www.magpictures.com/freakonomics/ | Freakonomics, the movie. Run time: 1:33:13, rent movie from iTunes for $6.00 |
| http://www.moviesforecon.com/table.htm | Movie clips with economic concepts, provides brief summary of the scene and economic concepts being portrayed. | |
| News Sources | http://money.cnn.com/ | CNN |
| http://online.wsj.com/home-page | Wall Street Journal | |
| The California Stock Market Simulation | http://www.californiasms.com/ | |
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California Council on Economic Education