Allowing students to explore their creativity by designing a product, such as a T-shirt, handbag or pottery piece, gives them the opportunity to experience creating a product or service that they'll supply to classmates. Thirteen Ed Online uses the example of assigning students to create a T-shirt to bring to class the next day. Then, have your students assign a price to the T-shirt they designed. This helps them determine the demand for the product they're supplying by seeing how much classmates would be willing to pay for the item.
One way to learn about supply and demand is to go out into the business world and take a look at what consumers are interested in buying, as well as which businesses are going out of business. Teachers can recreate the business environment in their own classroom. BrainPOP Jr. suggests giving each student an object, with some objects having a much higher perceived value than other objects. Then, give students fake money and allow them to try to purchase items from one another. Have a class discussion about what items had the highest demand and why.
Technology can be used in the classroom to help students explore supply and demand, building an understanding of the economic concept at their own pace. The Manatee County (Florida) School District designed its own resource for students to learn about supply and demand concepts. Students complete activities and read different stories about the economic principle through the program. If your school doesn't have its own resource, consider planning an online scavenger hunt for your students using economics-themed websites.
Although lecturing about economic principles can be effective for teaching the subject, using an interactive activity that forces each student to think about supply and demand and come up with answers to your questions ensures each students stays involved in the learning process. The Utah State University Cooperative Extension suggests giving students arrow-shaped cards to hold, as well as showing them common kitchen items, like cucumber, eggs and milk. Ask students to use the arrow cards, to point either up or down, if it was proven that milk cured cancer, as well as other similar questions to help students understand the concept.