Economics of Energy and the Environment Camp
For Social Studies and Science Teachers Grades 6-12

August 4-7, 2009 --- 3½ day camps
        August 4 (11:45 am - 5:00 pm)
        August 5 (8:00 am - 4:30 pm)
        August 6 (8:00 am - 4:45 pm, with an evening reception with Dave Sparby,
                      Acting President and CEO, NSP-Minnesota from 5:00 - 6:00 pm)
        August 7 (8:00 am - 4:30 pm)
University of Minnesota, St. Paul

Economics Teachers: Bring your favorite science teacher!

Clean air and water, wildlife protection, wilderness preservation - students care about environmental issues. This curriculum lets you build on their interest, helping students understand the economic issues of energy, healthy environments, and how to create a sustainable future for our communities.

At our summer environmental camp, you'll see these connections first hand, as you follow up classroom sessions with visits to sites that include an oil refinery, coal-fired energy plant, resource recovery facility and a wilderness experience. The workshop is led by UMD's Professor Curt Anderson, who developed the groundbreaking Seas, Trees and Economies curriculum.

“I loved that the class combined lecture with outdoor activities and visits to local industries. It was a perfect balance. Everything we did tied together and mirrored the ways in which our state’s resources and the economy are interconnected.” – Martha Rush, Mounds View teacher

Participants receive curriculum materials, lunches and refreshments. Travel stipends of $300 will be available to a limited number of teachers from outside the seven-county metropolitan area.

This program is made possible by funding from the Xcel Energy Foundation.

Seas, Trees, and Economies Curriculum
Seas, Trees and Economies is an intermediate curriculum developed by Curt Anderson, Director, Center for Economic Education, University of Minnesota-Duluth. This curriculum helps students understand the relationship between our natural environment and the economy, as well as describes how the environment and the economy jointly provide us with goods and services that we want. The lessons provide students with tools to recognize trade-offs, to explain how choices are made, and to explain how we can make better choices regarding the use of natural resources and the disposal of wastes that production and consumption create. Each lesson teaches fundamental economic concepts such as scarcity, resources, goods and services, opportunity cost, trade-offs, value, price, and incentives. Most lessons employ simulations and hands-on activities engaging students in the learning process and providing experiences to help them discover why things happen as they do.