Current+Events+Project

=Current Events Project (50 points)=

Due Date: _
Economics is everywhere, and we don’t even realize it sometimes! You will be working on a project that has two very important objectives:

1. Stay current with the news – there’s a lot happening out there, and it does have some effect on you! 2. Look at the world with an economic point of view!

You will be developing a “press packet” consisting of 5 news articles from newspapers, magazines, journals, and web sites.

__To do this, you will need to:__
1. Select a topic or issue that interests you personally (baseball, music, technology, nature, politics, computer games, etc.) 2. Identify and read news articles that relate to your theme. (may go as far back as August). 3. Clip out, print, our bookmark the URL of the article that works for you. 4. You must find one article for each of the following economic topics: 5. For each article, answer the questions related to your economic topic. (Questions are on the back of this sheet). 6. Assemble your articles into a packet, in the following order:
 * **Supply / Demand (Chapters 3/4/5 )** (key words: buyer's/seller's market, shortage, surplus, price changes)
 * **Government interacting or meddling with economic issues (Chapter 12)** (laws, oversight, policy, taxation, investigations, regulation, changes in interest rates, reports)
 * **Marketing/Advertising of Goods and Services (Chapter 11)**
 * **Partnerships/Mergers (Chapter 11)** (key words: buyouts, takeovers, partnership, acquisition)
 * **Entrepreneurship (Chapter 7)** (new companies or businesses, notable people or achievements, new products or services that solve unique problems)
 * 1) **Cover Sheet** with your chosen topic and your name.
 * 2) **Introduction**: 1 paragraph write-up answering the following questions: Why did you choose the topic that you did? Where did you plan to find articles?
 * 3) **Your 5 Articles, paired with answers to the topic questions**.
 * 4) **Reflection and Feedback:** 2-paragraph feedback about the project. Topics to include:
 * 5) Paragraph 1: How difficult to find articles about the topic? What are things that you learned/saw differently as a result of economic thinking?
 * 6) Paragraph 2: Ways to improve this assignment, or helpful elements of it, and why.

Anything that you write for this project MUST be TYPED!
=INNOVATION INCENTIVE: Develop and submit your project using Google Notebook (10 points extra credit). See wiki for [|example link] and more details.=

[|How to set up and use Google Notebook?]

=Topic Questions for Articles:=

Supply/Demand:
1. Is this article talking primarily about supply, demand, or a little of both? What SPECIFIC evidence from the article tells you this? 2. What effect is supply and/or demand having on price? 3. What is the impact on the consumer? How do you feel about this, personally? 4. How is the issue of scarcity affecting supply and/or demand in this article? 5. Does this article suggest that the issue of price is resolved? Or, does this article seem to suggest that it will be constantly changing? Explain.

Government Interaction/Meddling:
1. Why is the government choosing to get involved in the matter covered by this article? 2. What impact might the government have on firms/consumers? 3. Ideally, a capitalist society would like to have as little government intervention as possible. Is government intervention appropriate in this case? Why or why not? EXPLAIN!

Marketing/Advertising:
1. Which of the “Ps” of marketing would apply to this article? Give examples! 2. How would the marketing/advertising in this article allow for (hopefully) greater revenue for the company/firm involved? 3. How does this marketing/advertising benefit the consumer? 4. What are your thoughts here: good or bad? WHY?

Partnerships/Mergers:
1. Based on the information in this article, would you describe the merger or partnership as being vertical, horizontal, or as a conglomerate? Give examples to back up your opinion. 2. What is each firm looking to gain from the partnership or merger? 3. Which firm is looking to gain the most from this partnership? Why is this? 4. How would this partnership or merger benefit the consumer? EXPLAIN!

Entrepreneurship:
1. Publication source (newspaper or magazine name and date, OR web site name and date published) 2. What is the new good or service being discussed? 3. What specific issue/problem would this entrepreneur solve? 4. What potential problems might this entrepreneur face in getting started? 5. How could this entrepreneur help you or somebody you know live a better life?