Encourage tinkering with ideas, relationships, connections. Set up situations where students have to find information not readily available in school texts. Provide opportunity for students to design open-ended explorations of the concept. Provide multiple options so students can plan a unique "proof" of learning.

Apply knowledge learned in the classroom to real world scenarios

Objective: Students apply knowledge learned in the classroom to real world scenarios.

Activity: 1.) Students conduct a field-based study where the concept of elasticy applies. Their task is to go to a store and choose one product to analyze. They must ask 15 customers how many units of their product they would buy at the actual price, as well as how many they would buy at each of 3 alternative prices (withing 5% of the actual price). Students sum the customers quantities to create a market demand curve using the 4 prices. Students use their intuition and hypothesize what degree of elasticity their product exhibits. Then they calculate elasticity of demand between each of the points on the demand curve and interpret the results. Finally, using these results they also determine the effect on customers’ total expenditures and what effect an increase in an excise tax would have. 2.) Students write a description of where else the concept of elasticity can be applied, i.e. the brakes in an automobile-- What happens to your speed as you depress the brake pedal by a certain percent of pressure? The car slows down, but by how much? If the applied pressure is more than 1%, the result is elastic; if the pressure is less than 1%, the result is inelastic.