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LESSON: THE DOORBELL RANG
Lesson Summary
Victoria
and Sam are forced to share or distribute a limited number of
cookies. Each time the doorbell rings, more friends arrive and the
children face a cookie scarcity problem.
Concept: Scarcity
Definition: Scarcity is the condition of
not being able to have all of the goods and services that you want.
Comprehension Questions
Who
produced the cookies in the story?
The mother produced them in her
kitchen.
Explain why Sam and Victoria do not
seem to have a scarcity problem with the cookies at the beginning of the
story.
They evidently had enough cookies between them to satisfy
their economic wants for cookies. If they really wanted more, there
would indeed be a scarcity problem! In that case, they would have to
decided how to allocate the cookies between them.
Identify the economic problem that
grew each time the doorbell rang.
There were fewer and fewer
cookies for each child. There were not enough cookies to satisfy the wants
of all the children. The cookies were becoming more
scarce.
Describe how their problem was solved
when grandma arrived.
Grandma produced more cookies for the
children.
Did this solve the scarcity problem
for cookies in the story?
Yes
- but only because the children ended up having all cookies they wanted in
this particular, limited situation. (At least it seems that way in
the story!) If that is true, there would be no immediate scarcity
"problem." However, it is important to point out (to older children
especially) that cookies are considered a scarce economic good. They
are produced from scarce productive resources and therefore command a
price in the marketplace. Thus, in a more fundamental sense, cookies
are always "scarce." They are not a free good.
Other Concepts: Economic Wants, Goods and Services | 
