Demand and Supply in action - chocolate prices soar

Here is a great demand and supply in action story to get students practising their diagrams and explaining them.
The price of chocolate is set to soar over the next decade. This is due to a worldwide shortage of cocoa beans.
In addition growing taste for cocoa in China, rising demand for dark chocolate and an awareness of its health benefits are forcing up demand.

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Structural Unemployment

Sticking with the unemployment theme, this article would be useful for explaining structural unemployment. Many businesses are complaining they need workers but they are finding it hard to find suitably skilled staff. After reading the article students could discuss ways in which the government could reduce this type of unemployment.

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Jobs for Christmas - Seasonal employment

Here is a video to show season employment. Before showing the video I asked my class to think of companies that only require extra workers at Christmas.

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How happy are you?

British people rate their life satisfaction as 7.4 out 10 in the new flagship happiness survey. The poll of 4,200 adults was carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

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Can you crack the code? Recruitment in action

This is Business Studies but it would make an interesting starter for a lesson on recruitment. GCHQ has released a matrix style code which visitors of the site are given 7 hours to crack. Anyone successfully unearthing the word will be directed to the GCHQ recruitment website. This is a clever way of ensuring they are targeting the right potential employees. Can anyone in your class crack the code!

Code website

Sky News

Demand for Christmas

What does Call of Duty have in common with a four-pint bottle of milk?

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Update on working walls

For all of the delegates at the TEBBLE conferences this year I thought I’d give an update on the state of my classroom walls.

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Supply and demand in action – are the Aussies going off beer?

Here is a good example of supply and demand in action from Australia where despite having a reputation as beer lovers, demand for the drink has slumped to a 60 year low. I am going to ask my class to discuss what the cause of this could be and draw a diagram to show how it might affect prices of beer.

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Price Elasticity of Supply

Heston Blumenthal’s Hidden Orange Christmas pudding is expected to sell out once again at Waitrose as the last few reach the shops next week.

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Stat for the day - housing market

According to new research from the Bank of England young people should be prepared to rent until the age of 44. A leading member of the Bank said homeownership in Britain is set to fall sharply and the number of people forced to rent will rise. Homeownership has fallen from 70.9% in 2003 to 67.4% today with the rest of people renting.

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Britain v Germany - The Economic Fight!

Another great interactive guide from the Guardian. This one is comparing Britain and Germany in terms of who is better off.
This could be a great starter activity, getting students involved.

Tax - do you pay in more than you get back?

This is a great tax calculator from the BBC. You could make up some fictitious households for your students to compare. A great tool to look at tax and benefits in the UK. There is also a short video to introduce the topic.

Web of debt - interactive data

Some great interactive data from the BBC on who owes who and how much. A great way to show GCSE (and A Level) students.

Delicious data - UK GDP growth

Great graph here showing UK GDP growth between 2007 and 2011.

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Inflation - great short video

I showed my class this really good short video on inflation this morning. It is great as a recap or a starter on inflation. Lots of the key points students need to know are in there.

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Petrol prices - a breakdown

Last week I blogged about the prospect of increasing petrol prices. I have just found some useful information on the breakdown of the price at the pump. This would be really useful for teaching indirect taxes.

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Demand and Supply in action - The Christmas turkey

The cost of the Christmas turkey could be as much as 25% higher this year. As a result you will pay about £50 for an average 12lb turkey, up from £40 last year.

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Costs of Production - iPhone 4S

The graphic below is a great way to help to explain to students about costs of production and value added. The iPhone 4S costs £499 in the shops. However you may be surprised to hear that the total cost of producing it is £112.89.

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Will this stop people buying cigarettes?  Market failure in action

When I teach the cures of market failure I always say LETS intervene. This means governments could legislate, educate, tax or subsidise to reduce the market failure. This video shows a great example of the Australian government using legislation to reduce consumption of cigarettes which are a demerit good. Do your class think this is a good solution or can they think of anything better?

Sky News

 

EU growth rates - delicious data

A great graphic here on growth rates in the UK, Germany, France and the EU as a whole.

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VAT relief on DVDs

The Treasury is scrapping an exemption on VAT for goods valued at less than £15 dispatched from the Channel Islands

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Mnemonic Monday - Party Season Nearly Christmas!

It seems that Christmas festivities start earlier and earlier each year, so this mnemonic is rather fitting at the beginning of November.
This is a great one for remembering cross price elasticity.

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Demand and Supply in action - petrol prices

News coming in today suggests that we are going to see prices at the petrol pumps rise considerably over the next few years. The reason behind this will be increasing demand from the fast growing Asian economies.

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What is QE?

I am sure many of us have had students coming and asking what quantative easing is. Here is a great short clip explaining it.

Delicious data - petrol prices

Fuel prices have risen by an eye watering 49% in the last two years. Experts are predicting prices to go up another 10p next year. It begs the question - when will fuel price increases ever stop?
Data found that the cheapest region for petrol is Yorkshire and the Humberside, with the average price 132p per litre.
Whereas the most expensive area for petrol is London and the South East, with an average price of 137p per litre.

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Is the Euro crumbling?

This may have happened to you recently. A student asks you what caused the crisis in Europe and you try to explain but fail to make it sound particularly interesting. This quick animation from the BBC is much better at explaining the situation than me and would be a great starter for any lesson this week.

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Mnemonic Monday - Supply factors

This weeks mnemonic hopefully will help students remember the factors which cause the supply curve to shift. PINTSWC

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Top Toys - fashion and trends

On Monday we looked at the mnemonic for remembering the factors that cause the demand curve to shift. This story nicely illustrates the fashion and trends factor.
Here are the top 12 toys for this Christmas.

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Mnemonic Monday - Demand factors

So as we all embark on teaching demand and supply I thought it would be a good idea to remind ourselves of the useful mnemonics for this topic.
This week we will look at the factors which cause the demand curve to shift.

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Inflation - interactive guide

The updated inflation interactive guide is here. Following the announcement earlier today that inflation has jumped to 5.2%. The interactive guide is a great way for students to get an idea of what has been going on with inflation since 2006.