World History

Economics Project: PPT is due one week from finish in comp lab. 30 points.

Think of a nation's economy, as its financial health. Suppose you are a doctor examining a sick patient. You do several tests to see what exactly is wrong with your patient. You listen to the heart and lungs with a stethoscope, examine the ears, nose, throat, and eyes, and check the blood pressure, and pulse. You may also prod the stomach, palpate the neck, or tap the knee with a hammer.

An economist evaluating a nation's economic health is similar to a doctor. The economist will do tests to determine how well different parts of the economy are working. The tests the economis uses are called economi indicators.

1. You will be doing a PowerPoint to track the economic trends of the U.S. over a period of c. 80 years, from 1930 to 2008. As a BONUS, you may also look at January and February 2009, and locate information for those months.

2. You will select one year between 1930 and 1939 as your starting point. 193___.

You will then use 10 year intervals (from the date you selected) for your next eight dates. 194___, 195___, 196___, 197___, 198___, 199___, 200___.

.3. You will select economic indicators from the list below:

  • 1). Stock Market valuation
  • 2). Unemployment
  • 3). GNP, 4). GDP, 5). Per capita income (only one from this grouping)
  • 6). Balance of Trade
  • 7). National debt
  • 8). Housing starts
  • 9). Bank failures
  • 10). Agricultural output,
  • 11). Industrial output
  • 12). Military expenditures.
    • .


    RUBRIC-
  • Select 4 economic indicators- A
  • Select 3 economic indicators- B
  • Select 2 economic indicators- C

    • 4. Your research goal is to find the numerical value of the selected economic indicators for your dates.

    5. Use the PowerPoint Wizard, select a background, select colors, and font. Font size no smaller than 24. Use cooltext.com to create a fancy title (banner). Locate 3-4 animated gifs, (bestanimations.com; gifs.net; bellsnwhistles.com; gifmania.co.uk/money/ ) to enhance your slides.

    6. Your PowerPoint will consist of 8-10 slides. Four of them will be data slides: Title slide, Definition slide (economic indicators), chart slide, (line graph) and the last slide- bibliography slide. (Cite all sites that you use on the Bibliography slide.)

    7. Your Analysis will consist of 3 slides. You will explain the trends shown on your chart over the 80 year period.

    8. Historic slide - You will indicate why a trend changed course. For example, WWI caused the National Debt to increase. You may need to copy your line graph slide, and then add some of the historic events that caused changes in trends on that slide.

    9. BONUS You may also create a slide for Jan-Feb 2009. This slide will show in line graph format, the indicators you have selected, and the trends which are just setting up for the year..

    Day 1- research, Day 2- set up PPT, continue research, Day 3 –instruction on PowerPoint graphs. You may narrate if you wish. Music may be included on this PPT on title page and bibliography slides. Day 4- Headphones and microphone are optional, narration, music, animations, do final touches.