Indiana Social Studies E.3.3
The Standard
Explain how competition in markets affects price and quantity.
2026 Indiana Academic Standards: K-12 Social Studies · Students explain that because resources are limited, people must make choices, understanding the role that supply, demand, prices, and profits play in a market economy. Key elements of the course include study of scarcity and economic reasoning, supply and demand, market structures, the role of government, national economic performance, the role of financial institutions, economic stabilization, and trade.
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain what happens when more sellers compete for the same buyers. They predict how prices and the total number of items sold may change.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Given a one-seller market and a four-seller market with the same buyers, a student predicts lower prices and more total sales in the four-seller market. They explain that each store may sell fewer items even when the market sells more.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think more sellers means every store sells more. They may also confuse a lower price at one store with a drop in prices across the whole market.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: One town has one pizza shop. Another has four, with the same number of customers. Which town will likely have lower slice prices and more slices sold in total? Explain why.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give buyers play money and sellers paper pizza slices; run one-seller and four-seller rounds, then record prices and slices sold.
Ask students to write why a pizza shop might lower its slice price when another shop opens nearby.
Give pairs buyer spending limits and seller minimum prices; have them negotiate trades, add sellers, and compare results.
Compare prices for the same notebook at three nearby stores; predict how a fourth store offering a lower price could change sales.
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Related Standards
- E.2.4
Identify factors that cause changes in market supply and demand and how these changes affect price and quantity in a competitive market.
- E.2.3
Provide examples of how supply and demand determine equilibrium price and quantity.
- 4.E.3
Explain that prices change as a result of changes in supply and demand for specific products.
- 3.E.6
Explain that prices are influenced by interactions between buyers and sellers in markets.
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