1. Phase 1: Survival Days 1 and 2
You have 10 minutes to decide how will your group survive the first 48 hours.
Appoint a leader
The leader should draw up a plan and allocate specific tasks to each member of the group for the first 48 hours.
Decide how you will use the resources you have found.
On what basis will you distribute; food, shelter, tasks etc. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your decisions

2. Opportunity Cost Definition – the loss of the next best alternative.
Helps us view the true cost of decision making
Implies valuing different choices
Examples –
If you use the didgeridoo for firewood, you cannot use it as a fishing pole
If you use the drinking water collected from the rain for taking a shower, you cannot use it to satisfy your thirst
Give three examples of times in your decision making that you faced opportunity cost.
This is a key concept and one that often causes problems and misunderstanding but is central to students thinking like an economist. The crucial thing to knock out of students is their thinking that everything costs ‘money’. Because we have to make choices there are issues surrounding value judgements about what is important and what is not – it should not be difficult to stimulate discussion about what issues of government spending are important and what are not!

3. Phase 2: Day 2-60 (10 minutes)
How will you employ the resources on the island to produce a good standard of living for yourselves.
Discuss the allocation of roles, the use of natural resources, the opportunity cost, potential problems etc.
Use the A4 blanks sheets to make a mind up outlining your plans

4. The Economic Problem
What goods and services should an economy produce? – should the emphasis be on agriculture, manufacturing or services, should it be on sport and leisure or housing?
How should goods and services be produced? – labour intensive, land intensive, capital intensive? Efficiency?
Who should get the goods and services produced? – even distribution? more for the rich? for those who work hard?
This is the traditional three key questions any economic system has to answer. Many students would have difficulty defining what an ‘economy’ actually is! It is useful at this stage to clear this up – a system for the production and exchange of goods and services to satisfy the wants and needs of the population. This is open ended enough to be able to incorporate all manner of economic systems from a barter system that still exists in remote parts of the world to sophisticated economic systems such as the UK and US! The questions and the examples raised can be used for discussion – get the students to express their views at this stage and be as controversial as possible to stimulate discussion and involvement!

5. Growing the economy
Your next task is to write up a development plan for the island in the coming year- you should outline how labour is to be divided and how decisions will be made on resource allocation.
You must mention the economic concepts of
Opportunity cost
Choice
Scarcity
Factors of production
Needs & wants
Capital intesive / Labour intensive

6. Criteria- Development Plan- PREP
Day 60- End of Year 1
You should outline all your ideas about;
how resources should be used
how leadership of the island should be organised
How relations between the two islands should develop (+/-)
word essay due Monday (printed)

7. Extension
Suppose your college decides to lower the cost of parking by reducing the price of a parking permit from £100 per term to £5 per term.
What do you think would happen to the number of students desiring to park their cars in college?
What do you think would happen to the amount of time it would take to find a parking place?
Thinking in terms of opportunity cost, would the lower price of a parking permit necessarily lower the true cost of parking?
Would the opportunity cost of parking be the same for students with no outside employment and students earning £15 an hour?
Advanced Critical Thinking for
THE COST OF SOMETHING IS WHAT YOU GIVE UP TO GET IT
Suppose your college decides to lower the cost of parking by reducing the price of a parking permit from £100 per term to £5 per term.
What do you think would happen to the number of students desiring to park their cars in college?
More students would wish to park in college
What do you think would happen to the amount of time it would take to find a parking place?
It would take much longer to find a parking place
Thinking in terms of opportunity cost, would the lower price of a parking permit necessarily lower the true cost of parking?
No. Because we would have to factor in the value of our time spent for a parking place
Would the opportunity cost of parking be the same for students with no outside employment and students earning £15 an hour?
No. Students that could be earning money working are giving up more while looking for a parking place. Therefore, their opportunity cost is higher