The study of economics involves developing an understanding of how classroom lessons relate to real-world topics such as pollution, education, discrimination, poverty and health care. These one- to two-page "Wall Street Journal assignments" from an introductory economics course at Indiana University Southeast focus on microeconomic topics such as demand/supply and market structures and on macroeconomic issues such as economic growth and the benefits and costs of government activism in trying to regulate the business cycle. These assignments challenge students to model and solve problems, define and narrow a problem or research topic, gather relevant information from print and electronic sources, identify interrelationships between and among ideas and concepts within text such as cause-and-effect relationships, and synthesize information in academic essays.

Associated Benchmarks
ADP benchmarks that address the knowledge and skills required to complete these tasks are: