Our Michigan Adventure shows how the study of economic principles goes hand in hand with the study of Michigan and its development. To help your students notice economic concepts when they are presented, a special icon appears in the margin. This icon is a hand with a dollar bill.

The Native Americans were the first Michigan people involved in economic activity here. The Hopewell people put items in their burial mounds which came from faraway. They developed distant trading routes to collect such things.

As your students learn about the tribes trading furs with the French, they will see how scarcity, consumption, production and opportunity costs work. They can understand how a scarcity of furs in Europe brought Europeans in to the Great Lakes region.

When they study Michigan's lumbering and mining, they will realize the importance of natural resources, human resources and capital resources. The understanding of these concepts will be reinforced later when they study the birth and growth of Michigan's mighty auto industry. Students will comprehend how the auto industry has played, and continues to play, a major role in Michigan's economy.

Students will discover which businesses meet our needs in the chapter about what we make and grow in Michigan. They will learn the natural resources that are necessary to make the products we use. They will see how Michigan businesses are involved in importing and exporting products with their worldwide trading partners.

Learning what it means to be producers and consumers is an important part of knowing how our needs are met by Michigan businesses. Students are also introduced to the benefits and costs of using credit in daily life.

Later, they will find out about the goods and services provided by state and local governments and how we pay for these services.

Our Michigan Adventure covers all of the upper elementary social studies benchmarks for the Economic Perspective.

39 North Street Hillsdale, MI 49242 - Phone: (517) 437-3179 Fax: (517) 437-0531