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Price Controls: Agriculture and Fisheries - Lesson Plan: Flexible timing - 1-2 x 1 hour lessons

A series of 'off the shelf' lesson plans and resources for use in the classroom. These lessons deal with price controls and are relevant to the following specifications:

  • AQA: AS Module 1, 10.6
  • Edexcel: AS Units 1 and 2
  • OCR: AS Unit 2882, 5.2.3

Aim:

Two key EU policies, the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy, are dealt with together as they both exhibit cases where governments have tried to intervene in markets to correct failure, with mixed results. The Activity is straightforward - a briefing sheet along with some questions. The Activity can be used in this manner or it can be amended to allow greater discussion or group work within the lesson. Students will need to develop a basic understanding of the aims of each policy, the strategies used to achieve those aims, the problems raised by intervention and distortion of the markets and the reforms that are being introduced to try to remedy those distortions. This can be achieved through briefing the students and then setting a series of group tasks based around the questions that will form the basis of a report or a presentation to the rest of the group. The latter will involve a greater degree of individual work by the students and can be used as appropriate.

The questions are designed to encourage students to consider not only the economic theories behind the intervention but also the implications of such intervention on wider stakeholder groups. If used in conjunction with the Price Controls Activity on Prescribed Drugs in North America, it serves to demonstrate just how widespread the implications of government intervention in markets can be.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of the lessons, students should:

  • Understand the aims of both the CAP and the CFP
  • Understand the mechanism of intervention in each case and be able to use supply and demand diagrams to illustrate the intervention
  • Show an appreciation of the problems created as a result of the intervention
  • Understand the main reforms being proposed and the impact of those reforms on different stakeholders

Resources:

Lesson Structure:

The lesson structure is very flexible depending on how the Activity will be incorporated into the lesson. It is recommended that a review of the use of supply and demand diagrams to illustrate buffer stocks and income guarantee schemes be given.

  • This can be supplemented with the PowerPoint Presentation on the CFP and the CAP.
  • Students can be split into groups to do some research on the subject matter - each group can be given a question which they have to research and present to the rest of the group along with a brief explanatory paper so that the rest of the class have access to a decent set of notes on the topic to help reinforce the presentation.
  • Alternatively, the class as a whole can be given the Activity briefing and the questions and work through them all individually.

Whatever the method chosen, ensure that the learning objectives are stressed clearly and that students are clear on what the learning outcomes are. Some boards assess understanding of this section of the specification through objective tests - additional ones are available through the following links for further practice.