Our Nation examines how businesses operate in the United States. Students role-play business ownership, interview for jobs, and learn different methods of production while exploring various economic issues that affect business. There are five required, volunteer-led activities.

 

The key learning objectives listed beside each activity state the skills and knowledge students will gain.

 

Activity One: What's Your Big Idea? 

 

Students practice being entrepreneurs by turning ideas into businesses. They identify factors needed to create a variety of entrepreneurial ventures and design an advertisement for their product.

 

Key Learning Objectives

 

 Students will be able to:

  • Experience free enterprise and entrepreneurship.
  • Identify the key factors in establishing an entrepreneurial business.
  • Create an advertisement.

Activity Two: What's a Resource?


Students learn about resources and how they apply to technology, workers, and the needs of businesses and industries.

 

 

Key Learning Objectives

 

Students will be able to:

  • Describe resources, particularly human and capital resources.
  • Define scarcity and opportunity cost.
  • Discuss technology as a capital resource in demand by most businesses.

Activity Three: Job to Job

Students examine the skills needed by jobs that are in demand by businesses in a free enterprise system, particularly the skills related to high-growth, high-demand jobs.

 

 

 

Key Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • Identify the skills that support high-growth, high-demand needs in the workplace.
  • Analyze their own skills to see how they fit in the workplace.

Activity Four: A Cluster of Skills

Students learn about job clusters and the background necessary for each job. They are introduced to a simple resume that uses typical resume components.

 

 

Key Learning Objectives 

 

Students will be able to:

  • Identify clusters of jobs and the background required by those jobs.
  • Create a simple resume.

 

Activity Five: Worldwide Connections

Students are introduced to specialization and competition. They explore how their nation is connected to the global economy. They see how specialization and technology have contributed to free enterprise and their effect on the global business world.

 

 

Key Learning Objectives 

 

Students will be able to:

  • Describe specialization and competition in business.
  • Experience the global needs of many businesses.

 

Our Nation enhances students’ learning of the following concepts and skills:

 

Concepts–Advertising, Capital resources, Career preparation, Communication, Competition, Corporation, Demand, Employees, Employers, Engineering, Entrepreneur, Free enterprise, Global competition, Goods, High-growth, high-demand jobs, Human resources, Natural resources, Opportunity costs, Partnerships, Price, Products, Profit, Resources, Resume, Scarcity, Services, Skills, Sole proprietorship, Specialization, Stock, Stockholders, Supply, Technology, Technophile, Technophobe

 

Skills–Addition and subtraction, Brainstorming, Conceptualizing and designing advertisements, Creative thinking, Critical thinking, Decision-making, Drawing conclusions, Estimating, Evaluation, Following directions, Graphing and graph interpretation, Listening, Map reading, Problem-solving, Reading and writing, Reasoning, Role-playing, Teamwork, Verbal communication, Working in groups

 

Our Nation is a series of five required sessions and one optional supplemental session recommended for students in fifth grade. The average time it takes to present each session is 45 minutes. Materials are packaged in a self-contained kit that includes detailed session plans for the volunteer and materials for 32 students.