Economics, 11–13 years — 20 topics · MyLeoNes™ Kuks
20 economics topics written for 11–13 years — not a older text simplified. In teaching order, each a deck of five cards: the idea, why it exists, a worked example, the common trap and where you meet it.
Economics · 11–13 years
Scarcity and choice
There is never enough of every useful thing for everyone to have all they want. Scarcity helps explain why people, families, businesses and governments must choose.
Opportunity cost
Every choice uses something limited, so it closes off another possibility. Opportunity cost names the best important thing you give up, not every possible thing.
How prices guide choices
Prices carry information about how much people want something and how difficult it is to provide. When demand or supply changes, prices can move and influence both buyers and sellers.
Budgets and saving
A budget is a plan for money coming in and going out. It makes goals visible, protects important needs and shows what must wait when money is limited.
Specialisation and trade
People can make more by concentrating on what they do best and trading for the rest.
Taxes and public services
Taxes pool part of people’s money to pay for services and places that many people use.
Inflation and purchasing power
Inflation means prices rise overall, so the same amount of money buys less than before.
Interest and borrowing
Interest is the extra money paid for using someone else’s money, or earned for letting others use yours.
What money does
Money makes exchange easier, gives prices a common unit and lets people keep purchasing power for later. It works because people trust that others will accept it.
Revenue, costs and profit
A business makes a profit only when the money from sales is greater than the cost of making and selling its products. Separating these ideas helps explain business decisions.
Risk and insurance
Risk means an unwanted event might happen and cause a loss. Insurance spreads the cost of rare losses across many people who pay smaller amounts in advance.
Income inequality
People and households can receive very different incomes, even in the same society. Measuring the gap helps describe the pattern, while asking why it exists and what is fair requires careful evidence and judgement.
Competition between businesses
See how businesses try to win customers, and why competition can change prices, quality and choice.
Unintended effects on others
Learn why a choice can affect people who were not part of the buying or selling, and why that matters.
Shared public goods
Understand why some useful things are hard to sell one person at a time, and why communities organise them together.
Unemployment
Understand what unemployment measures, why it happens, and why being without a job is different from choosing not to work.
Supply and demand
How the amount sellers offer and buyers want helps shape a market price.
Productivity
How much useful output is made from a given amount of time, effort or equipment.
Economic growth
When an economy produces more useful goods and services over time.
Exchange rates
How the value of one country’s money is compared with another country’s money.
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