Thursday, September 13, 2012

Topic 2: Scarcity at School?

As we have learned, scarcity is an economic fact of life. We always want more than we can get with our given resources. This forces us to make trade-offs; we give up one thing in order to get another. This is true in every type of society, including that of our school. Write about some examples of scarcity that the different entities at PAS encounter (students, teachers, office staff, and so on), then write about what those entities have to give up in order to get what they want. Finally, write about your own experiences with scarcity at PAS. What are the resources that you want more of? What keeps you from getting all that you want? What are some examples of some trade-offs that you have had to make?
  • One of the examples of scarcity that the different entities at PAS encounter may be time. People do not have enough time to do what they must do. For example, during the breaks, many students do not have enough time to do the multiple things that they want to do, such as going to their lockers or going to the bathroom. When the students choose to do one of the two, they must give up the other (this is a trade off, and the second most desired option that the student chooses not to do is the opportunity cost. Sometimes, teachers and staff also face this trade off and the opportunity costs; they have to decide whether they want to do one thing or the other.
  • Some of the scarcity that I face at PAS includes the example mentioned above: not enough time to go to places where I want to go, such as my locker and the bathroom. Another scarcity that I face is that I cannot choose to take all the classes that I want to take because my class schedule is limited, and those classes sometimes clash with each other. I must make tradeoffs: if I want to pick one class, then I lose the opportunity to take another class.

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