Indiana Social Studies GE.1.4
The Standard
Illustrate a production possibilities curve to explain the concepts of choice, scarcity, opportunity cost, trade-offs, unemployment, productivity, and growth.
2026 Indiana Academic Standards: K-12 Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students graph how much of two goods can be made with limited resources. They use the curve to explain choices, trade-offs, opportunity cost, and unused workers or machines. They show how higher productivity can increase what is possible.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can tell which output pairs are efficient, which show unused resources, and which are currently impossible. They can calculate what must be given up to make more of one good. They can draw an outward shift when productivity rises.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may call a point inside the curve impossible, even though it shows unused resources. They may name the good gained as the opportunity cost instead of the good given up. Some show growth as a move along the curve rather than a shift outward.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Plot shirts and shoes pairs (0,12), (2,11), (4,8), and (6,0); label (2,5) and (4,11) as unused resources or unattainable. State the cost of moving from (2,11) to (4,8), then sketch what improved machines would change.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs graph paper and four output cards, (0,12), (2,11), (4,8), and (6,0); have them plot and connect the points.
Ask: Moving from 20 buses and 80 bikes to 30 buses and 60 bikes, what do we give up, and why?
Place three sticky notes on, inside, and outside a class graph; partners race to explain what each position means.
Compare a bakery before and after it installs a faster oven; have students redraw its bread-and-cookie curve.
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Printable GE.1.4 Worksheet
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Related Standards
- E.1.4
Define scarcity, and explain how choices incur opportunity costs, utility, and trade-offs.
- 3.E.7
Illustrate how people compare benefits and costs when making choices and decisions as consumers and producers.
- 2.E.3
Define opportunity cost and explain that because resources are limited in relation to people’s wants (e.g., scarcity), people must make choices as to how to use...
- E.1.5
Use a production possibilities curve to explain the concepts of choice, scarcity, opportunity cost, trade offs, efficiency, productivity, and growth.
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