Integrate current news into your semester-long high school economics course with this teacher-tested project. Encourage students to read and write about a wide variety of economics-related current events. Files are fully editable so that you can customize for your course.

This primary source activity pack gives students multiple ways to analyze the testimony of textile mill-worker William Cooper before a Parliamentary committee investigating child labor during the early Industrial Revolution in Britain. Students will read the testimony and can use multiple History Made Fresh strategies, such as Primary Source Ninja to identify broader themes within the document, and Prove It or Lose It to test claims made about the document for validity. Both strategies give purpose to student reading and writing with the goal of increasing understanding and demonstrating mastery. These activities are classroom tested.

This weekly activity allows students to measure and analyze changes in financial markets and economic data on both a short and long-term basis. It was created for the semester long Economics class commonly taught in United States’ high schools, but could be modified for longer/shorter duration – or location. The file is fully customizable. Students will look at trends and gain fluency with oft-referenced measures of economic status. It also provides a regular classroom structure for building understanding of macroeconomic principles throughout the course.