The document outlines a unit task that asks students to advise the Afghan government on how to incentivize farmers to stop growing opium and instead produce alternative crops. Students will analyze the costs and incentives facing individual opium farmers from the perspective of various economic actors. They will develop a model of a perfectly competitive opium farmer and explain how changing production costs could influence farmers' crop choices. The unit will incorporate concepts taught all semester regarding economics, markets, and government intervention to address market failures and negative externalities. Assessment will include formative discussions, practice AP questions, and summative group presentations and essays.

1. Task: Seeds of the Future
Description of Unit/Design of Activities:The Role of Incentives; Structure of Firms: Perfect Competition,
Market Failure and the Role of the Government
Task:
You have been hired as specialists to advise the government of Afghanistan how to incentivize farmers to
stop producing opium. From the perspective of various actors in its economy, you will develop the cost
curves for an individual farmer, and then explain what can be done to change the farmers’ production
costs so that he/she will start producing other crops, benefiting the citizens of the country.
Purpose/Enduring Understanding:
Incentives affect human behavior.
A farmer faces a perfectly competitive demand curve.
In the face of a decision, a farmer faces opportunity costs.
Choices made by an individual farmer can ultimately affect an entire country.
The government can respond to intervene to promote economic efficiency in the face of negative
externalities.
Driving Question(s)/Essential Question(s):
What choices do farmers make in the face of scarcity? What effects do individual decisions have on other
citizens within a community/country? How can government intervention incentivize farmers to limit
production of opium?
Content:This project will incorporate all concepts learned throughout the course of the semester and
allow students to derive the economic model of a perfectly competitive farmer in Afghanistan. Unit 1:
Basics of Economics; Unit 2: The Nature and Function of Product Markets; Unit 3: Factor Markets; Unit 4:
Market Failure and the Role of the Government.
AP Standards Addressed:
Production and Costs (10%) Production functions, short run and long run, marginal product and
diminishing returns, long run costs and economies of scale, cost minimizing input combination
Firm Behavior and Market Sturcture: (25-30%) Profit Maximization: MR=MC; short-run supply and
shut down decisions, and efficiency in perfectly competitive firms and oligopolies
Market Failure and the Role of Government (12-18%) externalities, public vs. private goods, antitrust
policy and regulation
as part of an instructional unit(s) on… Units 1-4
Major Experiences:
Intro with Video Clip about the Taliban and article about Opium Production; Fishbowl Discussion over
Seeds of Terror; Redrawing a Perfectly Competitive Demand Curve; Case Studies: Governmental
Responses, Jigsaw Reading over The Afghan Narcotic Industry; Deciding Roles of Economist, Farmer,
Consumer, Politician, Taliban member; Web quest according to Roles; Brainstorm Project/Create/Refine;
Present in Round Tables
Assessment: formative and summative:
Formative: Know/Need to know charts and I think… cards; Oral Discussion and Note card; Practice AP
FRQ; Flow Chart with Governmental Responses; Data on Note cards and Handout for Jigsaw; Individual
Research for Think, Pair, Share
Summative: Group-presentation of proposal; Individual-AP FRQ and Essay over Reading; Reflection
Questions of I used to think, but now I think
Time Frame:3-4 weeks before the end of the semester