Somewhere the late free market economist Milton Friedman was smiling last week as Clear Lake Elementary students got a hands-on lesson in capitalism.
The school’s fourth and fifth-graders conducted an Economic Fair in which they started their own businesses and sold a diverse selection of products they produced to classmates and parents.
Each student learned how to develop, produce and price a product, market it and deal with customers.
Clear Lake’s cafeteria was transformed into a bustling marketplace filled with brightly-colored signs advertising everything from marshmallow shooters and ‘stone buddies? (think pet rock) to jewelry and wallets made out of duct tape.
Like the carnival barkers of yesteryear, the student entrepreneurs shouted the virtues of their products to passing customers, who eagerly spent their allowances.
‘We found it interesting that students began to . . . cut prices on their products in order to increase their sales when buying was sluggish,? said teacher Melissa Peruski, who organized the fair with fellow educators Susan Teague and Melanie Royster.
According to the teachers, the fair ‘deepened students understanding of economic concepts? such as scarcity, opportunity cost, goods versus services, supply and demand, and the variety of different resources used in business including productive, human, natural and capital resources.
Students kept track of whether they made a profit, broke even or lost money.
When it was all over, they got a lesson in profit versus deficit.
They won’t learn about government bailouts until later in life.