18 Winners Chosen Each Year!
No student is too young to learn basic economic concepts! And, we can’t think of a better way to teach these youngsters than through an engaging learning exercise. Give your students an opportunity to illustrate their understanding of an economic concept using their creativity and art skills in a colorful drawing.
- Introduce & teach economics concepts using KCEE’s resources
- Let your students draw by hand a poster illustrating one of six key concepts
- Posters must be postmarked no later than April 1st!
And you could win $50 for your classroom!
If a student from your classroom wins, we will send you an Amazon gift card for $50 to be used in your classroom along with small prizes for the student. All teachers submitting a classroom set of posters (minimum of 13) will receive a free grade-appropriate economic education book of lesson plans.
DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES: Must be postmarked no later than April 1st!
Poster Entry Form –fillable Adobe pdf
ENTRY RULES
1. Posters submitted must be original work of the student only and drawn in color horizontally (landscape) on an 8 ½ X 11 inch white sheet of paper. Cardstock is preferred. The drawing should illustrate one of these six economic concepts:
-Goods & Services
-Opportunity Costs
-Producers & Consumers
-Productive Resources
-Scarcity
-Specialization
Each poster will be judged against other posters illustrating the same concept in the appropriate grade division. Judging will be based on originality, creativity, and accuracy of concept.
2. The economic concept must be:
-Written on the front of the poster horizontally (at the top)
-Spelled correctly
-Clearly printed in large letters
-Double concepts must both be illustrated
3. The following identifying information must appear on the back of each poster. Many teachers will use pre-printed labels or plain paper taped on the back. Whatever you find best works for us as long as it is legible. Labels are preferred as we find that ink often bleeds through and makes handwritten information illegible. You are welcome to use the following form setup for the required information and you can copy and paste school information for each before printing. If you have Avery 5162 labels, it should print correctly: FORM – Labels for back of posters
- Student’s name
- School
- Grade level
- Teacher’s name
- Teacher’s email address
4. Teachers, please print, complete and return an entry form with your class’ poster entries. Poster Entry Form –fillable Adobe pdf
DO NOT FOLD ENTRIES. Please mail flat in a manila-type envelope. ENTRIES MUST BE POSTMARKED no later than April 1, 2024.
Students will compete in their appropriate grade level: K-2, 3-5, 6-8. One winner from each grade level for each category will be awarded for a total of 18 winners. A classroom gift of $50 will be provided to the teacher along with prizes for the students.
Upon entry, all posters become the property of the Kansas Council for Economic Education and may be used for publicity. Winning entries will be posted on the website, along with the student’s first name, teacher’s name, and school name.
| BONUS: All teachers submitting a classroom set of posters (minimum 13) will receive a free grade-appropriate economic education resource. |
Concept Descriptions
- GOODS AND SERVICES: Goods are tangible objects desired by consumers and supplied by producers. Services are intangible outputs produced in the economy. Example of goods would be: a car, books, furniture; services include things such as: teaching, medical services, police and fire protection.
- OPPORTUNITY COSTS: An opportunity cost is what we give up when a resource is used for one purpose (so it cannot be used for something else). For example, if you have 50 cents and choose to buy a candy bar, you give up the enjoyment of eating an ice cream cone. If the baker uses a bag of flour to bake bread, she cannot use the same bag of flour to bake cakes.
- PRODUCERS AND CONSUMERS: Producers are the people and/or firms which make and supply the goods and services provided in the economy. Consumers use the goods and services produced to satisfy their wants and needs. Individuals are both producers and consumers.
- PRODUCTIVE RESOURCES: There are three basic kinds of resources used to produce goods and services. They include natural resources (trees, land, and water), human resources (people and their skills), and capital resources (tools, computers, and buildings). Money is not a productive resource.
- SCARCITY: World resources are limited, so we cannot produce or own everything we could possibly want. We must make choices about how best to use the limited resources we have. Economic systems allocate our limited resources in ways that give us the most satisfaction from the goods and services produced. Note that scarcity and shortages are not the same!
- SPECIALIZATION: A situation in which people produce a narrower range of goods and services than they consume. Specialization increases productivity; it also requires trade and increases interdependence. An example: labor specialization is achieved when a process is broken into many small tasks (division of labor).
Contest Deadline
This year’s Poster Contest entry deadline is set for April 1st for the postmark but don’t wait until then to get your students involved! We recommend that you use our online resources to introduce economics in your classrooms early on. Then, give the students opportunities to draw personalized illustrations of the concepts for a chance to win prizes! Winners will be announced by early May, in time to complete permission forms and mail prizes.
NEED more Teaching Resources for Integrating Economics?
There are many free online resources available containing great lessons to use in your classroom. See our suggested list below.
EconEdLink.org – www.econedlink.org
FREE online lessons & activities for grades K-12 that allows you to search for lessons by grade, concept, standards & more
Federal Reserve Bank – www.federalreserveeducation.org
This website host more lessons & activities for finance & economics
Browse more resources on our Resources/Helpful Links page.