Lesson 1 - Entrepreneurship's Many Beneficiaries

This lesson introduces students to entrepreneurship and asks them to consider the benefits of entrepreneurial activity. Students will investigate how entrepreneurs benefit those who supply resources. By simulating a resource market, with an increasing number of businesses demanding a fixed amount of resources, students will trace the positive effect on suppliers' revenues. Finally, students will examine the benefits to workers by comparing the number of jobs created by small and large businesses.

Lesson 2 - The Role of the Entrepreneur in the Economy

In this lesson, students will explore the purpose of an economic system and differentiate between market and command economies. Students will review the meaning of capitalism and engage with several different critiques of the market economy, exploring the ways in which these criticisms have extended to entrepreneurship. Finally, students will explore counter-arguments to these criticisms and learn how competition among entrepreneurs in a free market economy can promote behaviors that increase the welfare of consumers, workers, and society as a whole.

Lesson 3 - The Entrepreneur and the Supply Chain

This lesson will introduce students to the concept of the supply chain by tracing the journey of an "everyday product" from nature to the classroom. By analyzing this "everyday product" and reading a case study about a growing business, students will identify the four main types of businesses that compose the supply chain (manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and service providers) and explore the role local resources and assets play in business development. Finally, students will explore resources and assets in their local community and identify opportunities for entrepreneurs to build businesses using the local supply chain.

Lesson 4 - Choosing the Right Type of Business Organization

In this lesson, students will learn about the four types of business organizations: sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, and franchise. Students will play a concentration game to better understand the features, advantages, and disadvantages of each type. Students will then analyze four scenarios and recommend the type of business organization that is most appropriate for each case. The lesson concludes with an analysis of how each type of business organization plays an important role in the U.S. economy.

Lesson 5 - What Are You Worth?

In this lesson, students will perform a self-assessment, compiling a list of their human capital skills, determining jobs for which they may be qualified. Using an income statement as a tool, students describe all the costs the entrepreneur must consider in operating a business, including the costs the entrepreneur must pay for resources and the opportunity costs borne by the entrepreneur when establishing and operating a business.

Lesson 6 - Risk Management

This lesson introduces students to the concepts of risk and insurance, and students will explore how entrepreneurs recognize, transfer, and share risk. Through a decisionmaking activity, students will learn how entrepreneurs assess and protect against risk. Given various risk scenarios, students will select insurance coverage based on the probability of loss as well as the amount of possible loss to their business. Finally, students will demonstrate their knowledge of risk and insurance through a role-playing activity, in which they will judge real-life product liability cases.

Lesson 7 - Financing the Enterprise

In this lesson, students will learn about several different options for funding business enterprises, including family lending, traditional bank loans, and microfinance programs. Through an introductory case study in family lending, students will become familiar with the concepts of start-up funding, loans, credit, and debt as well as the two main types of business financing: debt financing and equity financing. Students will then engage in a role-play exercise in which they use their knowledge of different financing options to recommend a course of action to an entrepreneur based on the information he or she provides about his or her business. Finally, students will test their resourcefulness by thinking of creative ways to "bootstrap" their way into business without seeking external financing.

Lesson 8 - The Importance of a Credit Rating to the Entrepreneur

In this lesson, students will explore how earning and managing an income prepare the entrepreneur to administer his or her business effectively. Students will learn that income is a necessary step towards establishing credit, which an entrepreneur needs in order to procure start-up funding for his or her business. Students will explore the concept of credit in depth, learning about credit reporting agencies and examining the different components of a FICO score. Students will apply their knowledge of credit to several scenarios and provide recommendations for improving individuals' FICO scores.

Lesson 9 - The Entrepreneur and Human Capital

In this lesson, students investigate the ways in which the entrepreneur develops his or her human capital. By analyzing employment data, students discover the relationship between a person's education and earnings potential. Students then explore the competency model as a framework for thinking about education and professional development, defining and reflecting on the competencies the entrepreneur needs in order to run a business successfully. Finally, students will complete a self-assessment and identify the competencies they need to work on in order to increase their entrepreneurial potential.

Lesson 10 - Targeting the Market

This lesson introduces students to marketing and its importance to the entrepreneur. Through a series of teacher-guided questions, students will think like entrepreneurs and step into the consumer's shoes" in order to identify how a product can be marketed to satisfy diverse consumer wants. Students will place this thought exercise in the context of the marketing mix and target marketing. Through a hands-on matching activity, students will learn how the Four P's coalesce around a target market. They will then apply this knowledge to the lesson's culminating activity: the development of a successful marketing strategy for a given product.

Lesson 11 - The Business Plan

In this lesson, students will explore the importance of opportunity recognition, business planning, and business presentation. Students will conduct an informal gap analysis and analyze demographic data in order to identify business opportunities in their community. Students will then work in small groups to develop new business ideas based on the opportunities they've recognized. After learning about the components of a successful business plan, students will construct detailed plans for their new businesses. Finally, students will create a 30-second elevator pitch that communicates their business idea and plan to the class.