Lesson summary
The big idea, in plain language
Economics is the study of how people, businesses and governments make choices about scarce resources to satisfy unlimited wants. This week we focus on two everyday tools an economist uses to think clearly: the special vocabulary of the subject — what we call "economese" — and simple infographics such as demand schedules and demand curves.
You'll see how words like demand, supply, scarcity, opportunity cost and inflation are not just textbook terms — they describe what happens in Makola Market, at the trotro station, and on your family's shopping list. We then turn those words into pictures: a demand schedule (a table of price and quantity) becomes a demand curve, and suddenly a long paragraph of explanation fits on one chart. By the end of the lesson you should be able to read an economic situation, name it in economese, and sketch a small infographic that explains it to someone else.