Economics: Scarcity → Trade-offs & Frontiers Toolkit

Buy the Scarcity → Trade-offs & Frontiers Toolkit bundle to get both resources at a discounted rate compared with purchasing individually.

An engaging pair of browser-based interactives that bring the core ideas of scarcity, trade-offs, opportunity cost and productive efficiency to life. Students manipulate sliders and scenarios to see instant feedback, making abstract theory concrete and assessment-ready.

PPF Visualiser (Production Possibility Frontier Visualizer)

What students do: Explore a linear vs concave PPF, drag a point or use sliders to change outputs (“Guns/Butter” and “Consumer/Capital Goods”), and see real-time classification of points as efficient, inefficient, or unattainable with an on-screen opportunity cost read-out; a tabbed Explanation pane reinforces the underlying theory.

Distinguish linear (constant OC) and curved PPFs (increasing OC); define productive efficiency and feasibility.

Apply the model to mixes of consumer vs capital goods and classic guns vs butter contexts.

Interpret how moving along the frontier changes opportunity cost and why specialization makes the curve concave.

Judge whether a chosen point is desirable given trade-offs and resource use; compare linear vs curved frontiers for different economies.

Scarcity Game (Scarcity and Resource Allocation Game)

What students do: Choose among Family Budget, Government Spending, Business Resources, or Student Time scenarios; allocate limited resources via sliders; watch satisfaction, feasibility/over-budget alerts, resource-usage bars, and an optional “Prioritise Essential Needs First” rule that enforces staged allocation.

Grasp scarcity, needs vs wants, and opportunity cost through concrete resource/priority structures.

Transfer concepts to realistic multi-constraint settings (household, government, firm, student time).

Analyse trade-offs and efficiency using live metrics (satisfaction %, resource usage, feasibility).

Justify allocations under rules (e.g., needs-first tiers), reflect on equity vs efficiency, and consider alternative budget mixes.