Modern Electronics: Teaching Economics to High School Students with a System Dynamics Simulator

Economics is often a difficult subject for students to learn because it is taught in an abstract manner. This paper describes a simulator that teaches students economics in terms of a familiar economic institution, the retail store. The simulator casts the economics of a store within a System Dynamics framework. This enables students to understand the importance of feedback relationships in determining economic performance and viability of a business. An SD framework also enables them to understand the relationships among concepts such as demand, price, service quality, and the range of merchandise offered and available and how they change over time in relation to each other. The paper displays screens that the students use to enter decisions and track the store's performance through a number of simulations. Teaching economics with a simulator can actively engage students and help them learn more effectively as well as having some fun