|
Economics: The Business of Baseball
I. Introduction - rationale, goals, target audience
"You mean a hot dog only cost 10-cents in 1929, and a World Series
ticket was just $5.50 in 1940?" The varying worth of money is the
basis of this lesson for teaching students how baseball history reflects
American economics since the early 20th century. Hands-on math applications
and factors of trade and industry - such as labor, transportation, materials,
energy and the concept of supply and demand - are illustrated through
primary source documents from baseball's olden days and modern age to
help students analyze the ever-changing value of a dollar.
II. Objectives - in completing
this lesson, students will:
A. Examine historical data from various sources, including museum and
library collections, artifacts, primary source documents, oral testimonies
and Web sites.
B. Analyze data and interpret variables to compare and contrast their
impact on economic trends, consumer prices, standard of living and the
value of American currency across different eras.
C. Understand, through dialogue and practical application, how the evolution
of baseball coincides with historic events that impact buying power, including
the allocation of scarce resources and the four key pricing elements of
material, energy, labor and transportation.
III. Preparing the Students
A. Background
Because of baseball's enduring popularity since the early 20th century,
the game often reflects trends of trade and industry in American society.
Consumer prices and the interconnected factors that influence them - materials,
energy, labor and transportation - are typically represented in the rising
cost of attending a baseball game. Player salaries, ticket prices and
concessions are interrelated in their collective impact on the wealth
of the game and its many associated industries (e.g. trading cards, equipment,
clothing, etc.). The law of supply and demand ultimately determines the
economic ebb and flow of baseball and the value placed upon it by contemporary
culture.
B. Vocabulary
Baby Boomer
Cause and Effect
Concession
Consumer
Currency
Depression
Economics
Energy
Era
Factory
Industry
Inflation
Information Age
Korean War
Labor
Materials
Product
Rationing
Resources
Scarcity
Space Age
Supply and Demand
Technology
Trade
Transportation
Trend
Vendor
World War II
C. Pre-Program Activities
1) Acquaint students with different scenarios to explain the concept of
supply and demand, such as the Homestead Act, the Stock Market, oil embargos
or the scarcity of goods during the Great Depression and the war years.
The examples, which could be simple or complex, do not necessarily need
to be baseball related. These illustrations could be in the form of story
problems integrating different areas of the curriculum.
2) Choose an existing product that, in its production, demonstrates the
economic factors of material, energy, labor and transportation - as well
as the causes and effects related to the pricing of that product.
3) Ask students to research, compare and contrast the cost of a gallon
of milk, a postage stamp, a loaf of bread and a movie ticket as they were
on the student's birth date and a family member's birth date.
4) Assign students one of the following eras to research: 1929-1939 (The
Depression); 1940-1959 (The War Years and Baby Boomers); 1960-1979 (The
Space Age); 1980-1999 (The Information Age); and 2000 to the present (Today).
As individuals or in groups, have them develop a presentation on major
economic or historical events of that era. The presentation could be in
the form of a PowerPoint presentation, a simulated newspaper, a poster
project or a written report.
5) Using the Hall of Fame's Web site at baseballhalloffame.org, ask students
to sort and classify primary source documents to find artifacts related
to an assigned era of study (see above). Students should be responsible
for comparing, contrasting and gathering documents or data related to
their era of study.
IV. Presentation
If you are participating in a school visit or videoconference please do
not review this section with your students. It will be taught as part
of the presentation.
A. Opening
1) Display groups of pennies to visually compare the purchase price of
a baseball across different eras. For example, in 1929 a baseball cost
as little as 11 cents.
2) Ask students why they think the price of a baseball has risen over
time. Use their answers to discuss the basic principle of economics and
show how today's lesson illustrates this concept using actual baseball
artifacts.
B. Lesson
1) Introduce the example of a baseball factory that produces its product
based upon supply and demand, and determines pricing based upon the cost
of materials, energy, labor and transportation. INSTRUCTOR NOTE: Please
see Planning a Videoconference section for Primary source documents. Be
prepared to explain the operation of the factory, including factors of
material, energy, labor and transportation. Develop inquiring questions
to elicit how much students understand the concept of supply and demand.
2) Ask students to an example of a newspaper headline of a major news
event from each of the five pre-assigned eras. Engage students in an interactive
dialogue about important social or economic events that may have occurred
in that era as reflected by the newspaper articles, or other historical
records.
3) Have them research, record and tally a sum cost for the following items
related to their assigned era: a player's contract; a World Series ticket;
a souvenir game program; a hot dog; a bag of peanuts; and a soft drink.
To expedite gathering this data, assign research responsibilities to each
student. INSTRUCTOR NOTE: Give the students approximately four minutes
for this activity with the expectation that slightly more time may be
necessary.
4) Ask the press reporter from each group to present the findings. As
the data is presented by the groups, the press reporters complete their
respective Economic Scorecards showing costs compiled for each era. As
a class, draw conclusions about economic trends by comparing and contrasting
the findings of each group.
5) Hold up a dollar bill, first fully unfolded then gradually fold to
a smaller size, to illustrate its steadily diminishing value in relation
to the goods and commodities discussed in this lesson.
C. Conclusion
1) To provide additional context, introduce the cost of other items not
researched by the groups, such as an average annual wage and an automobile.
Discuss the cost of these items according to the norms for that time period.
Explain how the price of these commodities has increased dramatically
across the eras due to inflation and other economic factors. INSTRUCTOR
NOTE: The intent of this discussion is to compare and contrast standards
of living in each of the eras discussed.
2) Use an assortment of baseball cards to relate modern-day players with
the concept of value based upon supply and demand. Introduce the Honus
Wagner T-206 baseball card from 1909 as an example of increasing worth
due to scarcity of product, personal value, etc. INSTRUCTOR NOTE: Show
at least two modern-day cards of players with whom students may be familiar
- then introduce the Honus Wagner card. Find a copy of the card and background
information on its history at baseballhalloffame.org.
3) Returning to the original example of a baseball as a product, rotate
a ball to show the signature of a famous ballplayer on the reverse side.
Explain how a simple variable, such as an autograph, can dramatically
increase or decrease the value of a product.
If you are participating in a school visit or videoconference please do
not review this section with your students. It will be taught as part
of the presentation.
V. Enrichment and Assessment Activities
A. If a middle class family attended the World Series during the era they
were assigned to research, what percentage of the family's weekly wage
would be spent on the tickets? If the family bought hot dogs and sodas
at that game, what is the total amount the family would have spent? What
percentage of the family's weekly wage would that represent?
B. Apply the law of supply and demand to current event situations, such
as natural disasters or wars, which might impact costs associated with
materials, energy, labor or transportation.
C. Students can create a proposal to produce a new product. In the business
plan, they should provide a production budget that accounts for materials,
energy, labor and transportation.
D. From data gathered during this lesson, students should create tables,
graphs or pie charts to visually illustrate what they have learned. Working
in groups, students should develop questions that can be answered by data
found in the graphs they created. Students could then trade their graphs
and questions with each other.
E. Ask students to examine the "Green
Light Letter" from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Baseball
Commissioner Kenesaw M. Landis urging the continuation of baseball at
the outset of World War II. Discuss the economic implications and benefits
of Roosevelt's recommendation. Use this artifact (found at baseballhalloffame.org)
as a writing or discussion prompt for measuring students' ability to interpret
a primary source document with an understanding of economic and historical
impact.
VI. Additional Resources
A. Literature
Jennison, Christopher. Baseball Math: Grandslam Activities and Projects
for Grades 4-8. GoodYearBooks, 1995.
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Baseball As America. National
Geographic Books, 2002.
B. Web Links
econedlink.org/lessons/index.cfm?lessons=EM75
Baseball Economics 101
VII. Relevant National Learning
Standards
A. Economics
1) Understand scarcity is the condition of not being able to have all
of the goods and services that one wants. It exists because human wants
for goods and services exceed the quantity of goods and services that
can be produced using all available resources.
2) Understand the choices people make have both present and future consequences.
3) Understand scarcity requires the use of some distribution method, whether
the method is selected explicitly or not.
4) Can describe the distribution methods used to allocate a variety of
goods and services, such as, parking spaces, prison paroles, access to
a new drug treatment for cancer, seats on a bus, milk and tickets to a
popular art exhibits. Then explain why a distribution method is necessary.
5) Understand people in all economies must address three questions: What
goods and services will be produced? How will these goods and services
be produced? Who will consume them?
6) Can answer the three economic questions while producing a simple classroom
product, such as your bracelets, greeting cards or decorations for a school
dance.
7) Can list the resources used to produce some item and identify other
items that could have been made from these resources.
8) Understand incentives can be monetary or non-monetary.
9) Understand when people buy something, they value it more than it costs
them; when people sell something, they value it less than the payment
they receive.
10) Understand market prices are determined through the buying and selling
decisions made by buyers and sellers.
11) Can play a market game in which buyers and sellers determine the market
price for a common product, for example: wheat, apples, baseballs.
12) Understand relative prices refer to the price of one good or service
compared to the prices of other goods and services. Relative prices are
the basic measures of the relative scarcity of products when prices are
set by market forces (supply and demand).
13) Can identify examples of products for which the price fell because
sellers were unable to sell all they had produced; identify examples of
other products for which the price rose because consumers wanted to buy
more than producers were producing.
14) Understand an increase in the price of a good or service encourages
people to look for substitutes, causing the quantity demanded to decrease,
and vice versa. This relationship between price and quantity demanded,
known as the law of demand, exists as long as other factors influencing
demand do not change.
15) Understand increase in the price of a good or service enables producers
to cover higher per-unit costs, causing the quantity supplied to increase
and vice versa. This relationship between price and quantity supplied
is normally true as long as other factors influencing costs of production
and supply do not change.
16) Understand markets are interrelated; changes in the price of one good
or service can lead to changes in prices of many other goods and services.
17) Understand scarce goods and services are allocated in a market economy
through the influence of prices on production and consumption decisions.
18) Understand competition among buyers of a product results in higher
product prices.
19) Understand the level of competition in a market is influenced by the
number of buyers and sellers.
20) Understand the basic money supply in the United States consists of
currency, coins and checking account deposits.
21) Understand employers are willing to pay wages and salaries to workers
because they expect to be able to sell the goods and services that those
workers produce at prices high enough to cover the wages and salaries
and all other costs of production.
22) Understand to earn income people sell productive resources. These
include their labor, capital, natural resources and entrepreneurial talents.
23) Can survey several adults regarding their sources of income, and conclude
that the largest portion of personal income for most people comes from
wages and salaries.
24) Understands a wage or salary is the price of labor; it usually is
determined by the supply of and demand for labor.
25) Understand entrepreneurs and other sellers earn profits when buyers
purchase the product they sell at prices high enough to cover the costs
of production.
26) Understand entrepreneurs and other sellers incur losses when buyers
do not purchase the products they sell at prices high enough to cover
costs of production.
27) Understand standards of living increase as the productivity of labor
improves.
28) Understand technological change is an advance in knowledge leading
to new and improved goods and services and better ways of producing them.
29) Understand increases in productivity result from advances in technology
and other sources.
30) Understand Inflation reduces the value of money.
31) Can interview someone aged 50-59 years old about grocery prices. Compare
the groceries that could be purchased for $10 in 1967 with those that
can be purchased for $10 today.
32) Understands when people's incomes increase more slowly than the inflation
rate, their purchasing power declines.
33) Can compare the prices of a market basket of goods in 1980 with similar
prices today. Explain how inflation reduces purchasing power for people
whose income is fixed or increasing slower than the rate of inflation.
B. Mathematics
1) Select, create, and use appropriate graphical representations of data,
including histograms, box plots and scatterplots.
2) Discuss and understand the correspondence between data sets and their
graphical
representations, especially histograms, stem-and-leaf plots, box plots
and scatterplots.
3) Use observations about differences between two or more samples to make
conjectures about the populations from which the samples were taken.
4) Use conjectures to formulate new questions and plan new studies to
answer them.
5) Solve problems that arise in mathematics and in other contexts.
6) Apply and adapt a variety of appropriate strategies to solve problems.
7) Make and investigate mathematical conjectures.
8) Understand how mathematical ideas interconnect and build on one another
to produce a coherent whole.
9) Recognize and apply mathematics in contexts outside of mathematics.
C. Language Arts
1) Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret,
evaluate and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their
interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning
and of other texts, their word identification strategies and their understanding
of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure,
context, graphics).
2) Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different
writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences
for a variety of purposes.
3) Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas
and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize
data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and non-print texts, artifacts,
people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose
and audience.
4) Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g.,
libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize
information and to create and communicate knowledge.
5) Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their
own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion and the exchange
of information).
VIII. Planning a Videoconference?
A. Videoconference
Checklist (PDF)
B. Materials:
Teachers please divide your class into five equal groups. The names of
each group, based on different time periods in American History, are:
The Great Depression, The War Years, The Space Age, The Information Age,
and The Present. During the videoconference your students will use these
primary source documents to fill in their economic scorecard. Please do
not have your students do this prior to the videoconference.
The Great Depression
(PDF)
The War Years (PDF)
The Space Age (PDF)
The Information Age
(PDF)
The Present (PDF)