LEARNING ECONOMICS: PRODUCTIVE RESOURCES

8-10 yrs old

Digital Literacy

Math & Economics

Technology

LEARNING ECONOMICS WITH MINECRAFT: PRODUCTIVE RESOURCES

Submitted By: Minecraft Education

February 14, 2017

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Skills

Citizenship
Collaboration
Critical Thinking

Supporting Files

Handout 1 – Background Information for Teachers

Handout 2 – Instructions for Building a Home in Minecraft

Visual 1 – Human Resources in Minecraft

Visual 2 – Natural Resources in Minecraft

Visual 3 – Capital Resources in Minecraft

Learning Objectives

Define productive resources.
Give examples of natural, human and capital resources.
Apply the use of productive resources as they build a house in Minecraft.
Demonstrate understanding of how uses of productive resources can enhance or diminish end products.

Guiding Ideas

SUBMITTED BY: The Council for Economic Education (CEE). For more free K-12 economic and personal finance lesson plans and resources, visit CEE’s teacher site, EconEdlink.

CONCEPTS

Productive Resources, Capital Resources, Human Resources, Natural Resources

CONTENT STANDARDS

Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics: Standard 1 - Scarcity. Productive resources are limited. Therefore, people cannot have all the goods and services they want; as a result, they must choose some things and give up others.

C3 Framework: D2.Eco.3.3-5 Identify examples of the variety of resources (human, capital, physical capital, and natural resources) that are used to produce goods and services.

Common Core State Standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.2—Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.

INTRODUCTION

Understanding productive resources, the resources required to produce goods and services that people want, is important to understanding the economic world around us. There are three kinds of productive resources: human, natural, and capital.

Human resources are the strength, education, and skills of people. Natural resources are the gifts of nature that are used to produce goods and services. Water, land, and minerals are examples of natural resources. Capital resources are the goods needed to produce or provide access to other goods and to supply services. Examples include buildings, equipment, tools, machinery, ports and other manufactured and constructed things.

In this lesson, students will learn the definitions of resources and analyze their use in building a home within Minecraft. The Minecraft activity will take up the bulk of the lesson time.

RESOURCES

Minecraft Education, available for purchase at https://education.minecraft.net/how-it-works/tech-specs/
Computers
Handout 1 – Background Information for Teachers
Handout 2 – Instructions for Building a Home in Minecraft
Visual 1 – Human Resources in Minecraft
Visual 2 – Natural Resources in Minecraft
Visual 3 – Capital Resources in Minecraft

Student Activities

PROCESS

Ask students what things are necessary to produce or build a house. [Answers will vary but should include such things as lumber, nails, saws, carpenters, drywall, roofers, and land.] Tell students that productive resources are the things used to produce a good or service. Point out that productive resources can be placed into three groups: human resources, natural resources or capital resources.
Define the types of resources as follows:-
1. Human resources are people who work to produce a good or service. Examples of human resources are a truck driver, plumber, teacher and nurse. Ask the students for other examples of human resources. Write the students' responses on the board. Then show them Visual 1 – Human Resources in Minecraft.-
2. Natural resources are things that occur naturally in the world and can be used to produce a good or service. These resources are gifts of nature and are present without human intervention. Examples of natural resources are natural gas, granite, deer and minerals. Ask the students for other examples of natural resources. Write the students’ responses on the board. Then show them Visual 2 – Natural Resources in Minecraft.-
3. Capital resources are goods produced and used to make other goods and services. Examples of capital resources are an office building, computer, oven, and wrench. Ask the students for other examples of capital resources. Write the students' responses on the board. Then show them Visual 3 – Capital Resources in Minecraft.Recap by saying that productive resources are used to make goods and services that people buy every day. Ask students what things are necessary to cut hair.
4. [Answers will vary but should include things such as a comb, razor, clippers, electricity, scissors, hair stylist and so on.]Ask students to classify the productive resources used to produce a haircut as natural, human or capital resources. Record their answers on the [Answers will vary but should include the following: Capital - comb, razor, clipper; natural - water; human - hair stylist. If students name the person whose hair is cut or the hair, explain that the consumer is not considered a resource.]

MINECRAFT ACTIVITY

1. Divide students into teams of 4.
2. Tell them they will be working together to build a home in Minecraft using natural, human, and capital resources. The game should be set to multi-player mode so each student can build simultaneously.
3. Tell them when they finish their houses they will compare them to those of the other teams in terms of
  - Living space (Number of bedrooms? Living room? Kitchen?)
  - Design and amenities (Flow? Decoration? Functionality?)
  - Valuable additions (Farm or garden next to the house? Mining tunnel under the house?)
  - Property selection (Near a waterfall? Near a beach? Does the nearby landscape add or subtract from the home value?)
  - Which type of resource was most valuable for making the house special?
  - Tell students they will have 25 minutes to gather resources. They will then have 30 minutes

Performance Expectations

SUBMITTED BY: The Council for Economic Education (CEE). For more free K-12 economic and personal finance lesson plans and resources, visit CEE’s teacher site, EconEdlink.

CONCLUSION

When time is up for building, each team should give a tour of their homes and the class should decide which home they liked best based on the elements in Instruction #2.

ASSESSMENT

Each student should write a reflection on the uses of productive resources in their team project:

Reflect on the capital resources they selected. Were they the right ones for their house? How did they affect the outcome of their home? [Answers will vary: tools, i.e. pickaxes, hoes, shovels, and axes; picked a hoe and ended up not building a farm, thus not making full use of their tools; picked two pickaxes but needed a hoe for their farm.]
Reflect on how they allocated their human resources during the material-gathering process: did they spend enough time and have the right number of people on the tasks?
Reflect on which natural resources they prioritized and how those resources contributed to their home value. How did their gathering process affect the physical appearance of the house? Were materials well allocated or does the house look unremarkable?
Which resources did they find most valuable in the construction and gathering processes? Can any connections be drawn between how they valued their in-game resources and how resources are valued in the real world?