GDP and Pizza Online Course for Teachers and Students

GDP and Pizza: Economics for Life is designed to help students in civics, economics and other social studies classes grasp the challenging economic content—and to explain why these topics are important for citizens to understand.

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The GDP and Pizza: Economics for Life course is a two-day, online course produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It is designed to help students in civics, economics and other social studies classes grasp the challenging economic content—and to explain why these topics are important for citizens to understand.

The course includes numerous interactive checks for understanding, video clips of a Fed economist explaining concepts and everyday examples that will make sense to students. In addition, students complete a pre- and post-test to assess learning. There is a supplemental activity that can be used in class the day before going to the computer lab which can serve as a prelude to the two-day course. This activity can be used again at the completion of the course as an additional assessment of student learning.

Section One covers:

• the definition of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
• the components of GDP
• per capita GDP

Section Two covers:

• real vs. nominal GDP
• levels vs. percentage change
• importance of a growing economy
• trend growth rate
• uses for GDP data
• automatic stabilizers

This lesson received the 2015 Curriculum Gold Award from the National Association of Economic Educators. Read more about this and other awards.

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If you have difficulty accessing this content due to a disability, please contact us at 314-444-4662 or economiceducation@stls.frb.org.