SOUTHEAST ASIA FACTORS OF PRODUCTION

By Aaron Perez, Social Studies Teacher
James Madison High School, Brooklyn, NY

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OBJECTIVES:
Students will be able to:
1. Differentiate between natural, capital, and human resources.
2. Identify resources in Southeast Asia.
3. Evaluate the importance of different types of resources.
4. Evaluate how Southeast Asia has utilized their diverse number of resources.

TEACHER BACKGROUND:
Southeast Asia has an abundance of resources available for their production. Among them are the resources left behind by the European occupation during colonial times. This is a Southeast Asian economics lesson on factors of production with an emphasis on Southeast Asia's varied resources.

AIM:
How has Southeast Asia utilized and adapted their factors of production?

MOTIVATION: (Display on overhead Projector)
"Human wants are unlimited, but the resources required to satisfy them are limited. Once that limit is reached, nothing else can be produced."

1. What are resources? Give examples!
2. How are resources used by human beings?
3. What is meant by "human wants"?

PROCEDURES:

1. Make sure the student responses to the motivation are displayed on the board.
2. Solicit a definition for resources from students and equate it to factors of production.
3. Create a web diagram with factors of production in the middle. Identify the three types of resources; A- Human, B- Natural, C- Capital.
4. Define the three types of resources and ask students to give examples that may fit into each one of the three types of factors of production. Keep in mind that some examples may be classified as more than one type of resource.

Natural (land): What nature provides to create goods and services. e.g. Minerals; Wildlife; Timber

Human (labor): People's physical and mental effort to create goods and services.

Capital: Can refer to the money used to buy physical capital. Physical capital is what people create to produce goods and services. e.g. Factories; Tools; Machines; Trucks

SUMMARY/APPLICATION:

Define Entrepreneurship: Risk taking, managerial, and organizational skills needed to produce goods and services in order to gain a profit.
Divide the board into three columns. Each column should be identified as Human, Natural, or Capital.
Display pictures C1-C4, H1-H4, and N1-N4 in a random order, using an overhead projector.
Have students identify the Factor of Production from Southeast Asia and place them into the correct column.
Students should be able to explain the reason why s/he selected a particular column to place the Factor of Production being displayed