Individuals, businesses, and governments all earn, spend, and save money. Businesses sell goods to make a profit and to pay workers. Farms and factories produce goods that can be sold near and far to bring money into a community.  

What Primary Sources Can Tell Us about Communities at Work

Wherever they look—from the local supermarket to the classroom—students are surrounded by evidence of communities at work.

• Written forms – Budgets, checkbooks, and ledgers give us an idea of how much money a person or business is taking in and spending. Books like Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac provide practical advice on topics such as borrowing, spending, and earning. Signs and advertisements offer information about services and products that are for sale.
• Physical artifacts – Coins and bills can be colorful forms of currency that people use to buy things. Items found in stores and factories provide information about items people have wanted to purchase in different historical eras.
• Images – Photographs and illustrations capture on paper the steps involved in completing a job or advancing in a career. Maps, charts, and graphs provide information about the products and services available in different regions.

 Primary Sources 

Dr. William B. McCallum holding a sample of a Salinas-grown guayule plant

Manager of the International Rubber Company with guayule plant.

Manager of the International Rubber Company with guayule plant.

The guayule (pronounced why-YOU-lee) plant, held in this photograph by Dr. William B. McCallum, manager of the International Rubber Company of Salinas, California, is a yellow-flowered, silver-leaved shrub that grows about three feet tall in desert limestone soil. Natural rubber is produced in the plant’s woody stems and roots. In the early 1900s the first factories to produce rubber from these plants opened. After stripping the desert of virtually all its guayule, the rubber factories had closed by the late 1920s. Companies found that the Brazilian-grown Hevea rubber tree allowed for cheaper and easier production. During World War II, the federal government again turned to guayule as a source of rubber. Its production supplemented that of synthetic rubber which was, for the first time, being manufactured on a large scale. Processing guayule in large amounts for commodity items such as tires, however, proved to be too expensive. Today, though, because of the high price of crude oil, from which much synthetic rubber is made, companies are again turning to guayule as a possible source of many rubber-made products.

Rubber Tires

 

 Background Information 

What One Should Know Before Starting a New Business

According to a 2005 poll sponsored by Junior Achievement, sixty-nine percent of teens would like to start their own business. But what exactly does that entail? According to the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) there are four core questions that one should attempt to answer before trying to write a business plan:

• What service or product does your business provide and what needs does it fulfill?
• Who are the potential customers for your product and why will they purchase it from you?
• How will you reach your potential customers?
• Where will you get the financial resources to start your business?

In this activity students are asked to ponder the answers to such questions as they consider the steps involved in starting a new business venture.

 

 Classroom Activity 

Choosing New Items to Sell Locally

1. On your classroom chalkboard, write the words “goods” and “services.” Have students suggest things that they or their family have purchased lately, placing each item into one of these categories.

2. Invite students to suggest products that are made with rubber. (These include rubber balls, car and bicycle tires, rubber bands, erasers, rubber-soled shoes, and rubber stamps.) Then ask students to identify these rubber-made products as either goods or services. (They are goods.)

3. Show students the picture of Dr. William B. McCallum, manager of the International Rubbery Company of California, holding a guayule plant. Tell students that it is from this plant, as well as another called the Hevea brasiliensis tree, that natural rubber is sometimes made. Today, however, more than half of all rubber produced in the world is synthetic—made from a chemical process, as opposed to natural materials. Encourage students to suggest reasons why that might be.

4. Point out to students that, at certain times in history, for various reasons, companies have turned to the guayule plant and Hevea tree as sources of rubber. Using the information provided above, explain some of the reasons for this. Emphasize how the economic idea of “supply and demand” has influenced these types of business decisions. That is—companies that grow these plants for a profit have done especially well and prospered when there has been a need for greater number of rubber-made goods (during war time), or when other products used to make rubber have been too expensive or difficult to get in large amounts.

5. Now tell students that you want them to think of a new business that their community could use. Challenge them to think of goods or services that might be useful for your community to have and that there could possibly be a large demand for.  To get them started, ask students: Are the items on the chalkboard things that the community needs? Or, are these things that the community already has readily available, locally?

6. Suggest places where they might look for answers to those questions. One possible approach, for example, is to take a survey of friends and relatives, asking them about things they would like to have, but are unable to get locally. Another idea is look at census data for California counties . Other online sources that may prove useful include an interactive atlas of California and information related to California bioregions. Invite students to suggest ways in which such data can help them develop ideas for a community product or service.

7. Offer students, either on their own or in pairs, the opportunity to mention some business ideas based on resources not readily available in their communities. Jot these students’ ideas on the chalkboard and lead a discussion about those ideas.

8. Optional: Tell students that one of the first things people tend to do when they are thinking of starting a new business is to put together a business plan—a document that describes the business one wishes to start, and the steps needed to accomplish that goal. Share with the class the core questions that the SBA suggests people ask themselves before going into a new business. Then, as a group, brainstorm the types of information that a business plan might include. (Basic items in most business plans include: an overview of the product or service that would be offered, a rationale of what makes the business a good idea and who its customers would be;  the jobs that would need to be done to get it off the ground, an estimate of how much money would be needed to get the business started, and a list of ways and places the business might advertise and look for customers.) If you like, you might want to share (either as is, or in a simplified version), a sample business plan. Working with team members, instruct students to develop their own business plans. Tell students to imagine that the rest of the class is a group of possible investors—people who put money into someone else’s business with the promise that they too can make a profit, if and when the business starts to make money. It is their job to try to convince these investors to invest in their business. With this in mind, have each team put together a presentation for the class. Afterward, discuss the presentations.