Economics for everyone: A curriculum resource by OSSTF/FEESO

Two of the greatest social challenges we are currently facing are entwined: our current economic system, driven as it is by rampant consumption, is fueling a climate crisis.

Can justice—social, economic and climate—be found within capitalism? What might a system that meets these goals look like? And how can we best engage our students to prepare them for what lies ahead?

OSSTF/FEESO has created a cross-curricular resource based on Jim Stanford’s book Economics For Everyone (second edition). Stanford, a Canadian economist, is the founder of the Progressive Economics Forum and is currently an advisor to Canada’s largest private sector union, Unifor. He understands that economics, far from being the sole domain of experts well-versed in complex models incomprehensible to most, is most essentially a social science.

Drawing on chapters of Stanford’s book, the resource pulls Ministry curriculum expectations from a array of courses including Foods, Construction Technology, the Sciences, Law, History and, of course, Business and Economics.

Designed to map onto the various needs of a classroom teacher, it provides stand-alone lessons, assignments that can be used separately, or a unit plan within a course.

The resource is only available online on the OSSTF/FEESO Federation website in the Resource Centre—Curricular Materials and Classroom Resources section.