This site is dedicated to Mr. Rossberg’s IB SL Economics and TOK classes. The IB Diploma Program is a rigorous course of study that prepares students for university. Two courses within that program are Economics and TOK.
Economics
Economics is a Group 3 (Individuals and Society) subject that studies how scarce resources are allocated to meet the needs and wants of consumers. Students work through numerous theories and perspectives to answer three basic questions: what should be produced and in what quantities; how should things be produced; and who should things be produced for?
The Economics course is broken down into the following units and subunits:
Introduction to Economics
Scarcity, Opportunity Cost, Factors of Production, Production Possibility Curves, Economic Systems,
Microeconomics
Demand and Supply, Elasticities, Economic Models, Market Failure
Macroeconomics
GDP, HDI, Aggregate Supply and Aggregate Demand, Inflation, Unemployment, Distribution of Income
International Economics
Free Trade v. Protectionism, Globalization, Exchange Rates, Balance of Payments, Terms of Trade
Development Economics
Characteristics of Developing Countries, Economic Growth and Economic Development: Barriers and Strategies, Aid and Indebtedness
Theory of Knowledge
Theory of Knowledge (TOK) is a course, a flagship element in the Diploma Programme, that encourages critical thinking about knowledge itself, to try to help young people make sense of what they encounter. Its core content is questions like these: What counts as knowledge? How does it grow? What are its limits? Who owns knowledge? What is the value of knowledge? What are the implications of having, or not having, knowledge?
The TOK course is structured into two main sections, which are then broken down further into subtopics.
Ways of Knowing:
Sense Perception, Logic and Reasoning, Language, and Emotion
Areas of Knowledge:
Ethics, The Arts, History, Human Sciences, Natural Sciences, Mathematics
