The concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital can be difficult at times to understand. If I were to explain this to a fifth grader I would try to relate it to operating a lemonade stand as such. So you decide to build a lemonade stand and sell lemonade. You make four pitchers of lemonade and make five dollars a pitcher to make a total of twenty dollars for your self on the first day. On the second day you decide to hire a friend so that while you sell the lemonade and your friend can make the lemonade. On the second day you and your friend sell ten pitchers of lemonade at five dollars a pitcher to make twenty-five dollars for the each of you. On the third day you decide to hire a second helper to make even more output. On the third day you sold the lemonade, your friend made the lemonade, and the second helper helped a little with both but couldn't do much in the end because of the limited amount of lemons, pitchers, and table space. At the end of the day you sell fifteen pitchers of lemonade and made twenty-five for the each of you, this is the same amount profit as you made working with your friend. So you find that working with just one friend is most beneficial in that you get the greatest profit with the minimum requirement of workers. That even if you add more input (workers) you would reach a cap of output (profit). All this hoping fifth graders still know what selling lemonade in front of their house is.
The concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital is in some way quite difficult if one attempt to explain this in a pure and theoretical econommics to a 5th grader. However the best way to explain to a fifth grader about diminishing marginal returns is to use real life examples and analogies of efficiency. Supposed we tell them to imagine if anyone of them had ever been to a buffet. Considering their first plate that they had picked when they were really hungry, their appetite probably would have ranked nine or ten on a scale from one to ten. After the first full plate, they might want to try the second one but because they were full, their appetite would drop down to seven or six. And so on and so forth until they reached a point when thinking more about food would just make them fell sick. And that would be a good situation for 5th graders to imagine when trying to get the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital.
The concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital could be difficult to explain to a 5th grader because some have a diffrent way of understanding things, then others. The best way that I could imagine explaining diminshing marginal return to a 5th grader is to talk about toys and money. Two of the favorite things for 5th graders. The 5th grader doesn't want to go to school or soccer practice becasue they rather be home watching t.v or playing video games. His parents tell him that if he goes to school and soccer practice for a month straight they will give him $5 for each day he goes to school and practice, its a total of $140 plus a toy. He would much rather go to school and practice, then stay home and be lazy.
When you talk about marginal productivity to a fith grader can be challenging when you relate to capital stock. However, you related in another scenario say a pizza place. For example, you can tell the fith grader when you start to eat the first four slices of pizza you will not get fulled but when you start to eat the twelve slice of pizza you start to say no more pizza because you are full and might be sick so that will call diminishing marginal productivity in the begining it will go up and later it will go down
If i were to explain diminishing marginal productivity to a 5th grader i would give them the example of additional help when building a sand castle. At first when having one person working on a sand castle it would take that one person a while to finish. when you have two people work on the sand castle it will have a greater amount of outcome because they will be able to finish way faster than if just one person was working on it but once you start getting more and more people involved eventually the advantage of an additional person will stop since there wont be enough space for everyone to help out it, every further additional person wont have much effect.
After trying to explain diminishing marginal productivity to my brother, I found out that he best understood this idea when I explained it to him in physical terms. I told him to imagine that a construction company had one truck. And then I told him that the construction company bought two more trucks because of how well their business was doing. However, by the fourth truck I told him that the company no longer needed trucks because the company output stayed constant. As a result, the fourth truck was only used if one of the other trucks was in the shop because the company's output stayed constant.
To explain about the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital, I can use farming products of farmers as an example. It might be easy for a fifth grader to understand the concept of diminishing marginal productivity. We can suppose that there is assigned farm land area about 10. When only one farmer works for producing crops, he could get all of 10. However, if there are one more farmer, so total is two, they would divide profits with each other by each 5. One more step, three farmers would have own crops which is one-third of the land if three farmers work to produce crops. This example can show that marginal productivity could be diminished when the number of labor goes up and other conditions are constant to a fifth grader.
The law of diminishing marginal productivity of capital means that as you continue to add capital in a country for example, the capital will increase the growth of that country but at a diminishing rate. This concept can be difficult to explain to a 5th grader because most children think that more is always better. The iron logic of diminishing returns says differently; more isn’t always better. If I were to explain this concept to a 5th grader I would use one of my all-time favorite games called Jenga. In this game you basically build a tower of wooden blocks. The wooden blocks of this game could represent capital, such as delivery trucks or machines used to speed up production for a company. As you add wooden blocks to create your tower, the height of the tower grows, but at a “diminishing rate.” The diminishing rate of this example would be that as you add each block it eventually becomes weaker and weaker until the tower becomes so tall and unstable that it collapses. If a company continues to add numerous delivery trucks each one will become less helpful because the company only has a limited number of employees to drive the trucks so the company will, in a way, collapse like the wooden tower in Jenga.
I believe that the easiest way to explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital is to a fifth grader is to relate it to an example that they would understand. The fifth grader decides to quit school and sell the oranges that grow from his orange tree outside his house. The fifth grader is picking oranges, seting up his area where hes selling his oranges and actually selling his oranges. The fifth grader is tired of doing all te work so he hires a employee (another fellow fifth grade dropout). The first day he made thirty dollars. The second day is much easier on the young entrepreneaur, all hes doing is selling while his employee is picking the oranges and settng up the work place. The second day the fifth grader makes thirty dollar, same as the day before but hes has to pay his employee for his labor.His end profit is fifteen dollars. Another drop out is hired and on the third day each fifth grader has there own job. Now, the boss fifth grader realizes that he doesnt need the third worker because he only need one worker to do all the work. The third worker is fired and the mazximum profit possible is recieved with the minimal amout of workers. Lauren Castro
This is how you explain the law of marginal diminishing productivity to a fifth grader. You give him this example; think of a remote controller for your xbox or PS3. This controller is new the buttons work perfect, making playing video games a lot easier. Now let's say all your friends come over and each of them use your controller. Over time the the buttons start to wear down. If the buttons don't respond as quickly, your not going to be able to play as well. Every time you play the buttons are going to get worst and wort, and that is the law of diminishing marginal productivity. The more you use a limited resource it gets less productive from when you first use it.
I would simply say think about how your teacher ask couple students to pass back papers to other students. When a teacher is doing it by his or her self is takes longer but when she/ him gets other student to help her/ his it goes a little faster but when other student join the process is a little faster. Your teacher is using diminishing marginal productivity.Diminishing marginal productivity is basically a big line of teacher pets trying to earn brownie points. Haha!
I would tell the fifth grader, to understand diminishing marginal productivity, it would be like working at a restaurant. For a server to produce more money in tips, they would need to maximize the amount of tables that they can take at one time. If there are more workers working at a time, that would result in servers having less tables at one time, resulting in less money in tips. So sometimes having more workers may seem like a better option but in reality it may not be as beneficial as it would be if they had the proper amount of workers at a time.
If I were to explain the idea of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader I would try and relate it to something relevant in their lives. Its difficult to explain that even with a fluctuating input, there is still a maximum output. One scenario that could be used is to relate it is to an apple orchard. One farmer could pick enough apples to produce a profit, but if he hired 10 more workers it would be more efficient and they would be able to gain a larger profit due to a larger apple supply. However if the farmer were to hire 100 farmers it would be inefficient because there is only a certain number of apples available to be picked in the orchard. Since they would still produce the same amount of product. This shows that more is not always better.
i would explain the law of diminishing productivity in a simple way to a fifth grader. I would use an example of eating candy. when you start out eating your first, second, third, maybe even fourth piece you still get the satisfaction of eating candy, but once you start pushing it to eat more and more candy eventually your stomach starts to hurt and suddenly the candy doesnt look so appealing. the amount you reach where your still enjoying the candy and the amount that u begin to regret eating the candy is the diminishing marginal productivity.
the law of diminishing marginal productivity can also be explained in a way that is very easy to understand. say for example that we have building blocks. you begin to stack the blocks on top of each other and you begin to go higher and higher, you notice that the blocks are starting to get wobbly. when you place one more on top they all tumble down to the floor. the law of diminishing marginal productivity would be the point where the blocks begin to look crooked and unstable, at this point you have too many blocks and there is no need for them because they will only cause all the blocks to collapse.
Basically in simpler terms how I would explain to a 5th grader about the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital would be relating it to a soccer team. For example, a soccer team always has has more than 11 players in the team. Yes, at a game only 11 of them including the goalie play but, they have extras on the benches just in case they need to trade players sometime during the game either for injury, expulsion or tiredness. Of course, they can't have all players playing at the same time because they would have to pay them all high rates (when you play at a game you get payed more). Instead they rotate players to not overpay to the players and also have extras for an emergency case and not loose the game which would also bring money loss.
The way i would explain the law of diminishing marginal productivity to a fifth grader would be the waiting in line to go to the restroom. When the two stalls in the restroom are occupied by two kids, there is no wait in line. But lets say three kids want to go to the restroom. One has to wait a while longer. Now we get to six kids who want to go to the restroom, the line will now take a long while till the kids can't hold it anymore because of the long wait. this will be the law of diminishing marginal productivity because the kids who were first got satisfied but as the other kids have to wait that satisfication starts to go down. to where some may have an accident.
I think I would use a simple example to explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity to a fifth grader. I would use the example of studying for a test. The night before an exam it is good to study to get a higher grade. Studying for one hour would probably make the grade a lot higher than studying for zero hours. Studying for two hours would again increase the grade making it higher than studying for one hour but not by the same percentage as the first hour. Studying for three hours would again raise the grade by continuing to add to the knowledge base. Adding more and more hours will continue to add the benefit of more knowledge but at a smaller rate. After a certain point it is possible that the student has learned as much as possible for one night and that studying for additional hours would actually decrease the test grade by making the student too tired to perform at his or her best. The moral of the story is that it is important to find the most efficient use of your time on the night before a test balancing between study and rest.
If you manage the pizza restaurant with your future wife in the future. At first time, you don't have enough money to employ cookers. so first time you and your wife make pizza by yourselves. You and your wife can make 5pizzas in hour. Your restaurant is more and more famous, so many custumers visit your place. That makes you employ more cookers. If they are 3 more cookers, they can make 10pizzas in hour. you put more money,but just increase 5 pizza in hour. When you and your wife can make 2.5pizzas per each person in hour. However 3more cookers,you and your wife make 2pizzas per each person. Actually the total making pizzas are increased, but per each person making pizzas are decreased. This is the one example of diminishing marginal productivity of capital.
A factory has only ten tools, ten machines, and ten workers. As the company increases number of workers, the total production of the factory will grow but very very slowly. This is because after certain point, the factory will be overcrowded and workers will begin to form lines to use machines and tools. To solve this problem, the firm will have to build more factories and buy more machines and tools for labors.
For a 5th grader, I would compare the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to Santa Claus. When a child is really young they really believe in Santa which would be the great boom of growth in capital. But as they get older they start to believe in him less and less until they don't believe in him at all which would be the point where the curve increases to zero.
I would have to compare it to having friends over for a sleepover. If you invite two other friends plus yourself, that is a good amount of people. You will have plenty of room on the living room floor and just the right amount of the good snacks your mom bought. But if you invite four people plus yourself things are getting kind of crowded on the living room floor and all the good snacks are gone right away! So while having a lot of friends over seems like a good idea(input) it really actually takes a hit on your goodies and personal space(output).
The best way to describe diminishing marginal productivity to a 5th grader would be on terms they can relate to. If you decided to sell girl scout cookies door to door but are only allowed to sell to people in your neighborhood , on the first day you can sell 7 boxes a day, the next day you decide to have a friend help and are able to sell sell 11 boxes a day. You hire one more friend and can sell 14 boxes a day. So as you add more and more cookie salesgirls each person become less productive because you are limited on the area you can sell in.
The concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital means that when you bring in another worker to work with you in your shop at the begining you will be making more money, but once you bring more and more workers into that same shop you will be losing money because the shop and all the material in the shop will not be enough for all those workers to work in anymore.
The best way to describe diminishing marginal productivity to a 5th grader would be on terms they can relate to. You can relate this to inviting people for a pick-up basketball game. So, you invite enoough people to have a 5 on 5 game. But when people start bringing a friend along just in case if theres not enough to show it gets to be too many people. So, yea it's great that you know now that you can invite different people to play a game but at the same time when everyone shows not everyone is going to have fun having to switch in and out.
I would describe diminishing marginal productivity to a fifth grader by giving them an example about cupcakes. Let's pretend you just learned how to decorate cupcakes using icing, sprinkles, etc. You make a dozen cupcakes and you bring them to school to share amongst your 5 friends. They are so fascinated with how beautifully decorated the cupcakes are, they start telling how students about them and pretty soon the cupcakes are all gone and you didn't even get a chance to taste one! - Ashley Rice
i would try to explian to the kid that diminishing marginal productivity is all about finding the right balance to produce the most goods or production. for example 5th graders love video games. but if they have only onr video game to play they will get bored very fast. on the other hand if he has too many games the kid would not have enough time to enjoy them all. this is why it would produce more production if the kid only played 3 or 4 games at a time so he can play with tem all equally and not get bored.
I will explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader with managing pasta restaurant. I opened the pasta restaurant with 2 chefs. Because pasta was delicious, many people visited my restaurant. Therefore, I decided to hire 2 more chefs. Because I could sell more pasta, I could earn more money. Many customers still visited my restaurant. I hired 2 more chefs. However, my restaurant kitchen was small. There were no enough spaces that six chefs can work. Even though I hired 2 more chefs, I couldn’t earn same amount of money than I hired first 2 chefs.
To explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a fifth grader I would try to relate it to something that they could relate to, like doing homework. If when doing math homework it would take quite awhile if you didn't have a calculator. So say you get one! You could do your homework a lot quicker. But what if you bought another calculator? Would it really help you that much more than the first one? What about having three or four? After the first one the rest don't really help so much. That is the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital; more is not always better.
I would explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity to a 5th grader by relating it to something simple they would understand. For example say a 5th grade girl wants to start wearing make-up, her mother said it was fine if she went through her make-up and picked out what she liked. The next day before school she puts on blush and mascara. She goes to school and everyone says how pretty she looks, so the next day before school she decides to put on more make-up, on top of what she had put on the day before she also puts on a light pink lipstick. When she goes to school everyone says again how pretty she looks. So the next day on top of the make-up she had already used she also adds; dark eye shadow, eye liner, and dark red lipstick, now when she arrives at school instead of complements she comes to find everyone saying she looks like a clown. What she did was considered diminishing marginal. Her change in output (make-up) resulted in a decree of labor output (complements) from too much of the output (make-up) on her face. (Why her mother let her were that much make-up in the first place, I am not sure!)
I think the best way to describe the law of diminishing marginal productivity to a fifth grader would be using a game of soccer as an analogy. Usually on the playground a game of maybe 6-on-6 would be the perfect amount to fit on the field without overcrowding it. When, one by one, more people come to the field and want to play there comes a point where it's no longer a game of soccer it's just chaos on a field. As more people come to the field the game becomes less fun because there is no control, and not everyone touches the ball.
If I was to explain the concept of diminishing mariginal productivity to a fifth grader I would try to explain it in a way they would relate to it better. Like video games for example. They most likely would want to invite a friend to come play with them because it would be more fun but if they keep adding more and more people to come eventually it would be too crowded and the initial value of fun for the individual will diminish. Which then can be related to like events when you add more variable resource or labor to a fixed company or set plan then the marginal value will evenutally lose its value. Back to the games example if you only had 2 controllers to play video games and you invited more then that then someone is going to be left out
The way I would explain this concept to a fifth grader is in terms of ice cream. I would explain and tell them that you eat the first bowl of ice cream and then you think it taste really good so you want more, and maybe even a third time, but after that it starts to be too much and if you eat anymore that you are going to start feeling really full and get to the point of you might even get sick. -Bryce Kerns
If i have chance to explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity to a fifth grader, I will try to explain them to easy way. As an example, drinking sodas. When you start to drinking sodas, by one can or two can and even more, it will goes well into your stomach and feeling of sparkling and icy, but after reached your limit to drinking, you will feel hurt on your belly and you cannot even drink more sodas anymore. SO I will explain more that the amount you reach when you feel great with soda, after that point when you feel sick for drinking soda is the diminishing marginal productivity.
I would explain it to a5th grader in terms of a food, for example cupcakes. at first you'll love eating them. the more you'lleat the happier you'll feel, but eventually your hapiness will start to diminish because you'll start to get full and they will not have the same impact. So even though you are still eating a food that you like, the happiness that you get from each cupcake will be smaller though.
If I had to explain diminishing marginal productivity to a 5th grade i would put it in terms of playing with their favorite toy. When you are given a new toy for christmas or your birthday, it becomes your most favorite toy to play with. As time goes by, and after playing with this toy over and over again it gets old and you get tired of playing with it.
The way I would explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity would be by using a real life example. That would be an easier method to understand the concept rather than giving them the actual definition. The example I would use would be candy. At first, they'll be really eager to eat a bag of candy. The more bags of candy they eat, the less appealing it'll be because they'll probably get sick of it. -Daisy Guan
I would explain it with the balance of having toys and keeping a clean room. The smaller amount of toys you have the easier it is to clean up your room. However, that means there are less toys to play with during your free time. If you had too much toys it would take a lot longer to clean your room. And probably wont look as clean. So you would have to find a balance to where you can have enough toys to play with but at the same time make it easy to clean them up! -Alexandria Guerra
The law states that when more & more units of variable input are used with a given quantity of fixed inputs, the total output may initially increase at an increasing rate & then at a constant rate but eventually it will increase at diminishing rates. That is the marginal increase in total output decreases eventually when additional units of variable factor are used, given quantity of fixed factors.
Then I would give an example that would help them visualize the concept:
For example if one farmer is working a crop of land the output will be increased if another farmer starts working as the fixed factor was underutilized. If we employ more & more farmers to the same farm the output would decline as the fixed factor would be over utilized by the variable factor & the total output would decline. Which means the more farmers you have the less each farmer work each farmer does, which makes adding any more farmers useless.
It is hard to explain the diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader because it is a hard concept. It could be easier if someone explains it by using things that kids like. THE BEST FORM WOULD BE CANDY. sAY A KID LOVES CANDY BUT HATES BRUSHING HIS TEETH. wRLL A PARENT WOULD TELL HIS KID i WILL GIVE YOU A CANDY EVERYDAY AS LONG AS YOU BRUSH YOUR TEETH. wELL IF HE DOES THAT THEN HE IN REALITY WILL BEGIN TO DO WHAT HIS PARENTS TELL HIM AND THAT IS WHEN THE diminishing marginal productivity of capital. That is how I would explain it to a 5th grader.
I would describe diminishing marginal returns to a five year old as clothing. The more clothes you have, the more laundry you have to do. It seems important to accumulate more clothes to have more choices but as these increase the stress of additional laundry and storage makes it seem less useful. The ideal situation would be have just enough good choices rather than too many. Sara Nydam
I have a 5th grader at home so i tried explaining this to him with something he likes. I used a soccer game as an example. I explained how if the game was started with missing players on both teams and then players started arriving that was like increasing capital. The score is the output which would be increasing throughout the game as well as the number of players. The more players the teams have the stronger opponents they become, so less goals are scored. Once the teams are at full potential there is still scoring opportunities but not as many as before. If my explanation was not correct then my 5th grader will not understand the diminishing marginal productivity of capital, but he will not be late to his soccer games.
The way I would demonstrate to a 5th graders is by showing an example by selling candies to fundraise for a school field trip. so for example the school is going to supply the 5th grader with candies and it is his/her job to sell them to make money. so an easy way to demonstrate diminishing marginal productivity is the kids friends will help him sell the candies faster and the more help he gets the higher and quicker are the profits. and if the you want to be smart about selling a candy if the candy is a dollar a piece you can sell it for 2 dollars a piece and you can profit money to yourself and to your friends for helping you.
Coincidently, I have a nephew who is in the 5th grade and since my family revolves around sports, soccer to be exact, I went ahead and explained diminishing marginal productivity to him in those terms, soccer terms. I gave him an example using his soccer team. I told him that if he ever wondered why his soccer coach had others helping him out with coaching them. Ofcourse, he said no. So I went ahead and explained to him why it was so. I told him that first of all, coaching a soccer team of a bunch of 4th and 5th graders isnt easy. I told him that the reason why his head soccer coach had his assistants was to help him out with coaching each practice. It made things run alot smoother and faster. I told him how if he didnt have the assistants it would be much more difficult. Kind of how diminishing marginal productivity works. I explained to him how having the assistants keeps things constant and that, that was one of the reason why his (my nephews) soccer team was so good because the assistants did such a good job. That was the assistants payoff or reward.
I would explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader with an example they could understand. I would tell them that diminshing marginal productivity is when by adding more in efforts to increase productivity, a point is reached where you no longer increase productivity, but instead it stays constant and eventually starts to decrease, or diminish. I would tell them to imagine a company that hired a person to clean their building. I would say it takes the cleaning person two hours to clean the whole building. Then I would explain to them that by adding one more person it cuts the time in half, so it takes two people one hour to clean the whole building. And that by adding a third and fourth person it takes a half hour and so on. But evenutally there is a point where the company has hired too many people that things start going wrong. People are getting in eachothers way, and their isn't enough supplies (bceause buying more would cost more money), and that the salaries of all these extra employees is costing the company more money and is in fact less effective then just paying two people for one hour.
To explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader, I would give an example of a person running and having energy drinks. If you give a runner one energy drink, they will be able to run a little bit faster because they have more energy. However, if you give the runner like 5-10 energy drinks, it doesn't mean the runner will run faster because a person can only run so much at a time. The more input you put does not necessarily mean there will be more output.
The best way I can explain the concept of Diminishing Marginal Productivity of Capital to a fifth grader is by comparing it to ironing shirts. For example, I would tell the student that the concept works as ironing shirts for neighbors as a job in his or her room. You can iron twenty shirts a day at the price of three dollars a shirt summing up to sixty dollars a day. But you realize if you hire a friend you can iron a total of thirty shirts, (ten more shirts than you could by yourself), paying him or her two dollars for every shirt he/she irons, making ninety dollars (you making ten more dollars and your friend twenty). But now you have less space in your little room to do work. But you still want to make more money so you get another friend to help you, but he or she can only iron five shirts due to lack of space in the room for the same pay as your first friend. So as you can see the more friends you hire the less shirts you can iron.
If I were to explain diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader I would try and compare it to school. You could take 6 classes and think that's a good thing because you're getting so many classes out of the way. But do you really have the time to keep up on all your studies for every class and maintain A's and B's? On the other hand you could take 3 classes. You wouldn't be getting as many classes out of the way, but I bet you would have more time to focus on each class, thus resulting in better grades. Another way I'd try to explain it would be to compare it to friendship. You could have 20 friends. That may seem good because you have so many friends. But are they all true, good friends? On the other hand, you could have 5 friends. You don't have as many friends now, but I bet the 5 friends you do have would all be true friends. I guess the point I'm trying to make is, more of something is not always better.
Imagine you sleep your 8 hours every night, but some of those nights, you have nightmares and you lose some hours of your sleep. You then decide to sleep earlier so that you can get enough sleep and rest well. The first few days you feel that the more you sleep the better active you will be at school, but if you keep doing it for the rest of the week, instead of being active, you will start getting lazy because you have gotten used to sleeping a lot more and all you want to do now, is sleep all day and you will be less productive
I can explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader through a simple example. I would use the example of managing a clothing store. If you start to manage a clothing store, you will not have enough money to buy clothes and hire employees at first. So, you will try to sell your product alone. Also, you should make clothes alone. If you try to make clothes hard and promote your own store, many customers will visit your shop and buy clothes, then you can make more money. When you earn much money, you will start to hire many employees. Then, they will work hard for making clothes and selling your product. I think it is better way than you work alone. However, if you hire many employees, you should spend so much money for cost of labor. Also your shop will be crowded without any customers because you have many employees. Relatively, a number of employees and clothes which you and employees made are increased, but number of clients will be decreased. I think that this is the example of diminishing marginal productivity of capital.
I would explain the concept by comparing it to playing a video game. The more you play the game the less interesting it is. At first the game is great then after a while it starts to become dull. Then you have to find ways to have the game more interesting. Either that or get another game. Thats how I would try to relate it.
I would explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity to a 5th grader using the example of a band. Let's say we start off with a drummer, bassist, and lead guitar/vocals. The band is limited to playing certain songs and they want to expand their sound so they get another guitarist to play, let's say, rhythm guitar. Now we have a drummer, bassist, lead guitarist/vocal, rhythm guitarist and now the band is able to play a wider range of different tunes with the different musicians. If the band was to add more musicians; 1. More money would have to be divided amongst themselves. 2. They would have to be really coordinated to play well together. 3. They would have different ideas and views as to making the songs so the productivity would decrease.
The way I would explain diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a fifth grader would be in the form of Valentine’s Day grams. It is appropriate for the Holiday season! I would set up the table in the classroom and have the proper material already laid out for them. The children would have to fold the paper into a card formation, punch a hole in the card, glue candy inside, and so on. Through this I would place them in a line and add more and more children into the mix to show them that increasing labor to the production does not help – it’s diminishing. Another way to explain it would be in a demand and supply example. The demand for the Valentine grams will increase the output of the grams, once that happens you will incur more cost, but if you don’t have enough customers you have a diminishing marginal productivity as well.
To explain the concept of diminishing mariginal productivity to a fifth grader, I would try to explain it in a way they would understand. For instance, I would relate it to a sport as in golf. Golf is a difficult sport and having a golf coach or swing coach would help your game. But if you didn't have a swing coach growing up in the golf game would be much harder. This I would relate to a fifth grader because many fifth graders have a mind set to make things hard on themselves because they don't know better. Not only would a golf coach would help out the fifth grader and remain a consistent swing. This not only would help your golf out but it would make things much easier on a fifth grader. The reason why is to make the swing more constant and much easier to play the game and have fun.
One way I would explain diminishing marginal productivity of capital is to give an examples of what they can relate to. Like proposed to them that let's have sell pies but we only have one stove and five pie pan and every tools that we need we only have one (we call those capital). As we finish making the pie we sale them and we make a lot of money now we hire more people to work for us so we can make more pies, but since we only have limited tools the workers have to wait to uses the tools that is needed to make our pies so the next time we sale we didn't produce as much pies as we did because the workers was waiting instead of making us go faster. This is what we call diminishing marginal productivity of capital.
Diminishing marginal reminds me about example in psychology. This example shows how the satisfaction of any service or product diminishing by consuming more. For example, a person can be satisfied and happy with the first units of any product. Then the following units will be less benefit for him than the first units, because the satisfaction degree will be diminishing gradually by consuming more units.
I'd hand a 5th grader one pen. "Write." I'd hand them a second pen. "Write." Fun yeah, but less functional. After three or four pens I'm sure they would start to get the idea that, while another pen still may add some additional fun, it decreases in functionality. I'd probably never mention the term "diminishing marginal productivity of capital," though. They don't deserve a headache.
If i were to explain to a fifth grader what diminishing marginal productivity of capital is, i would refer to it as getting to the lunch line in order to eat food. You gather up various fifth grade colleagues, and set a truce between each other, of whom ever gets to the lunch line first helps out their fellow companion to cut in line. The award for the fifth grader to let the other companions cut in line, is having a piece of fruit or whatever they want to give him in that given moment. overtime everyone in the group will get their share of goods. This will also take stress of some fifth grade colleagues, for the fact that they do not worry about getting to the lunch line in such a dramatic way.
If I had the ability to explain to 5th grader students the topic of diminishing marginal productivity I would choose a topic that they would enjoy like IPODS. I will tell them that we own a Ipod Factory and we make them. I would explain to them what fixed resources are and that we need to make Ipods in a time manner. If I hire 0 workers my output will be 0. I will tell them I will hire more workers to produce more. Then I will ask them If they want more?? While we hire more workers there would be a marginal product of negative>.Then I would ask more students to partici[pate and in the factor I have less resource and more workers that would have alot less space. HIring to much workers would bring us to a negative output. Manuel Marroquin 003717102
It is pretty hard to explain such an abstract concept, the diminishing marginal productivity rule, to fifth graders because they may not fully understand it. Hence, I believe that giving vivid and comprehensible examples can be very helpful to them. For example, there are two children using scissors to make crafts. Now there is only one pair of scissors. Let’s say, they can make two crafts within one hour. If I provide them with two pairs of scissors, they can double their efficiency of making crafts; however, if I provide them with three pairs of scissors. Their efficiency of making crafts cannot be increased any longer because each of them has already had a pair of scissors. Extra pairs of scissors can be regarded as unnecessary resources supplied. These unnecessary resources cannot increase the total productivity.
Diminishing marginal productivity is a satisfaction will be diminished by get quantity when goods that is consume or get is increase. Let me take an example. When I am hungry, I eat a hotdog. At the first time, I can really enjoy a hotdog. This will make me get decent satisfaction. However, I cannot be happy when I eat one more, two more or three more. This will cause me to refuse hotdogs when I am full.
My opinion to explain diminishing marginal productivity is mainly about looking for the best balance to maximize the profit. If I have a pet shop, I have hired 3 persons working for me, but it is too busy when pet shop opened, they can not be able to serve all of the customers, so that I lose some deals. So I found one more person to work for me, I received more money, then I did it one more time, but the profit is not as much as before. So we have to find the good balance when we doing the business.
I would give a example to them for explain diminishing marginal productivity. If someone pull weeds in a greenhouse. He or she can pull 100 weeds in an hour. If one more person pull weeds together then can they pull 200weeds in an hour? I say no. They can't do that. They just pull 180 weeds in an hour. Also, one more join that working. They pull 270 in an hour. Like this, when each one more join that working the amount of increase will be smaller and smaller. That is a significant example diminishing marginal productivity in labor. Also, diminishing marginal productivity of capital is same thing.
I would explain to a 5th grader with crayons. When there is a pack of 24 crayons and two kids drawing, the crayons are shared easily. As more and more kids enter the room to color, the less crayons there are to share. Until to the point where there is 24 kids and 24 crayons.
I would explain this concept to a fifth grader with the idea of some sort of a band, just your typical rock band. You start of with a vocalist/rhythm guitar, bassist, drummer, and lead guitar. Then you add in backing vocals plus another acoustic guitar, and maybe a saxophone. This would mean that the productivity and musicality in the band would increase, as well as a wider variety of music that can be played. This would lead to less money distributed to the members because of more people joining the band.
I would explain this concept in a way that I remember as a kid, so in elementary school one of my aunts would watch us while my mom was at work so we would be at her house. She would make us lunch and then after we were done with our food we could go play with all the toys. So there was 5 of us including her son, so the first person done would get to go play with as many toys as he or she wanted first, then the second one would get to play with some of the toys that were left, and so on. So the more people that were added as they finished eating only had so many toys to play with leaving maybe only a few to play with for the last child.
I would use an example involving involving people and a well. Let's say you have a water well which can have two people getting water from at a time. Imagine only you are collecting water and selling it to thirsty people. You make some good cash to spend on bubble gum and baseball cards but then you think, "Why not expand," so you hire your friend to help you. You both collect water from the well and sell it and make more money than before. With so many baseball cards and bubble gum you think to your self,"Why not expand?" So you hire one more friend to work for you. But he is getting in the way because the well only can have two people at it at a time. At the end of the day of selling water you make less money. There is a good amount of labor/people to have working which you must find.
if i were to explain the diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a fifth grader i would decribe it as a tatto shop. Say for example you have a tatoo shop that you start by yourself.You make one tattoo an hour and charge 100 dollars a day at the end of the day you make 700 dollars. You decide to hire a friend to increase the amount of tatoos that can be made. you double the production and make 1400. so you decide to hire another friend and the next day you make 1500. the next day you hire another and you make the the same amount. the production can not increase becuase of limited capital of goods and nthe demand for your product.
THe diminishing marginal returns to a fifth grader goes alil something like this... So lil child when we look at the graph and the different line that goes up and then down on our graphs shows us something. This graph is mathematically showing us things that we can put into words. It is showing us that at first the graph increases and increases UNTIL... it gets to a certain point where everything is even, the sea is still... and the graph reaches this point of equilibrium. After that you can see that production starts to decreases as Inputs increase or as they say their are "two many cooks in the kitchen", so your business starts to actually lose money even when you produce more. It is costing more to make more so thats no good.
After reading other classmates thoughts on this concept, I would do my best in simplyfying the thought of diminishing marginal product of capital. Let's say there's a family of four, who's considering a family cell phone plan. Of course there is a father, who is a very busy business man and is being affected by this recession (money). The dad is the first unit of capital and if he get's a single person plan he get's more minutes on his cell plan and has a less expensive plan. This is the input. However if he adds his 5th grader son (who doesnt't need a phone) as well as his teen age daughter, and wife to his plan (who he needs to contact)then he would have less minutes and the bill would be a more expensive one, which he can't afford. This is the output. The capital goods are the minutes he would be willing to have and the fixed factors is the money and family members.
An easier concept to teach a fifth grader about diminishing marginal product of capital would be by explaining to them how important it is to get enough sleep but too much sleep on the other hand isn't good. For example if they sleep all their eight hours they will be able to pay attention in class and be ready to learn. Now for every extra hour of sleep that they get they become lazy and wanna sleep more. They go to school feeling really tired because now they have slept more that what they were suppose to.
The easiest way to explain diminishing returns with a 5th grader would be eatting cookies. Almost every kid loves cookies. So you would tell them that the get to eat the first cookie and it's good. Then you give them a second cookie and they enjoy that too, but they are getting more full. Then another cookie and another and another. They start getting full and too much sugar and most little kids start to get sick. So after maybe (lets see...a 5th grader...) the 20th cookie? The kid will start loosing interest in the cookie and each cookie they eat will make them sicker and sicker. Thats how I would explain diminishing marginal returns to a 5th grader.
I would explain the concept of diminishing marginal capital by using candy. On Halloween all they think about is getting lots of candy to eat. When they achieve getting tons of candy they would start to eat it non stop. But as they keep eating candy their appetite will start diminishing and they would slowly get tired of eating the candy so much that they would feel sick. Then they would get so sick of the candy that they wouldnt want to even touch it.
Assuming most kids in the 5th grade play video games, I’d use the most popular real time strategy game known as, “StarCraft II” to explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital. This game is a perfect example of economics because it’s based on building a base and a military force by harvesting resources with the workers you have readily available at the start of a game. In the game a player must harvest resources from a geyser (known as “Vespene Gas”) using a number of workers to bring back to the player’s base, which is used as a currency to build an army, additional workers, and buildings that amount to the player’s base. Only one worker at a time can enter the geyser to collect a canister of gas, however, having two, or even three workers collecting gas from the same geyser increases efficiency. Unfortunately, adding a fourth, fifth, or more number of workers to collect gas from the same geyser does not increase efficiency, which therefor leads to the opportunity cost of using those additional workers for completing a different task during the game. In conclusion, allocating three workers to a geyser achieves maximum efficiency.
I'll use the Characters Peter and Joe. Joe gets more allowance than Peter, which gives Joe more capital or spending power allowing Joe to advance faster than Peter. Peter will not be able to compete with Joe, because Joe has more capital to use. This means if Joe wanted he could buy more candy for example than Peter, in turn if Joe wanted to sell the candy, he could also gain more profit and earn more capital
explaining this to a 5th grade i would simply say, if your on the jungle gym playing with 2 friends is fine, but the more friend or people start to come to the jungle gym the more crowded it will get and the less time you will be able to play in it.
If i were to explain this concept to a 5th grader, I believe the candy example would work the best. The sports examples are great as well, but then you have kids who arent interested in sports. If I give you one peice of chocolate, its tasty, AND mysterious. I'll give u another chocolate from the See's box, it will still taste good, and you will still be excited because it'll be something different than the first one. But after so long, the chocolate will upset your stomach, and not only that, but the "mystery factor" will get old to you. I think using treats in general would be the best way to go if attempting to explain this phenomenon to a 5th grader.
I would try explaining dimishing marginal productivity of capital to a fifth grader in the terms of working in a restaraunt. Imagine your a manager of a restaraunt, you have one waiter who works for you and you have 100 people who come in every day. But, you hire another waiter, well the amount of people who come in to your restaraunt hasn't really changed, you now have 105 people a day; so it now costs you double to serve a few people more. Now, say you hire a third waiter, but still you dont really serve more people then when you had only one, and even two. You now have 110 people, but now your paying three people but not making much more money for the amount of help you have. It costs you more money proportionally to pay the workers than the money you make. You make less money total!
The way i would explain this to a fifth grader is by using the example of a farmer, which even helped me understand it better. I would explain if you hire one farmer plant corn to work on the farm you will get 3 rows of farm land planted. But if you hire one more then you get 7 rows completed you will more than the double amount completed. But if you hire a third one you only get 9 rows which is not much more, but it does cost you 3 times more to get only 9 rows completed. So in the end it cost more to have 3 workers because you don't have as many rows completed. So the amount of rows completed would go down, realizing you don't need as many farmers. -Polet Milian
explained diminishing productivity to a fifth grader, just like that would explain it to anyone else. You can only produce so many widgets before producing the next widget does not become profitable. Those diminishing productivity.
Mmm good question this would be very easy to explain to a fifth grader i would simply tell them What my mom use to tell me if we go to the movies for your bday you can take however many friends you want but the more mommy has to pay for the less money you get for your bday !
I would say look at diminishing marginal productivity as consuming twinkies and your satisfaction. When you eat one twinkie you are very satisfied, but the more and more you eat the less satisfaction you get until there is no more desire to eat any more twinkies
i would explain diminishing marginal productivity in terms of candy to a 5th grader. you eat a lot and a lot because it tastes good but after a while your going to realize it doesn't taste good anymore because its too sweet and its making you sick to your stomach. 5th graders looove candy.
Well professor your right 5th graders are very smart, so in this case they might have a better chance at explaining it to me. But first I would give my explanation of diminishing marginal productivity in terms of shopping for shoes. You only have one pair of feet so why do you need every color and style when you can only wear one pair. After awhile you’ll have so many shoes and no money to go anywhere.
I would you explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader, in the way I would explain it to my nieces; lately we have been playing a lot of board games, at first (Life) they were pumped, the second round (Clue) they were still somewhat excited, but by the end of the third (Monopoly) they were beat, during the middle of the third game they were no longer as eager to win nor as wise with their moves, they just wanted the game to be over so they could move on to another activity.
I would describe it as the more you make the lower it will be worth. Because the U.S. is so advanced it has to take a big jump in technology for it to make a big jump
Because we are dealing with extra units of input needed to yield a similar output we know that an imbalance is going to happen. If I tell a fifth grader that in order to play five minutes on a video game he will need to clean five dishes in order to get that reward. However, because the value of him cleaning those five dishes is diminishing, he will have to do 10 the next day in order to get the same five minutes on that video game. The following week maybe he will have to clean 15 dishes in order to earn that five minutes on the same video game.
I would explain the concept by comparing it to eating candy. The more you eat the candy the less appealing it is. When they first start eating the candy they love it but as soon as they eat too much they are feeling sick and tired.
In my opinion we can relate to a fifth grader with food, when you are hungry you can eat so much but with limit. If you eat more than your limit you can through up and get sick, and that’s what we call the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital. First it goes up so high to a certain point than it start going down.
I would tell the fifth grader(girl for example) that it basically compares to the newest barbie doll out. When the toy first releases its something you can't wait to get and when you finally do it's something you can't get enough of. But as you get more and more of the same or similar doll it starts to loose its appeal and you no longer desire it at the same level you did before.
i would compare it to their schooling. Ex. say on your very first homework assignment you forgot and got a 0!. The very next one you turn in can increase your grade tremendously but after that the more hw you turn in the smaller you grade increases
If i were to explain diminishing marginal return to a 5th grader i would compare it to summer break. On the first day of summer break you are so excited and have so many things that you want to do. As the days go on you begin to have less and less to do. Sooner or later you have grown bored of most things and don't have anything to do. Eventually you are then eager to return to school.
Although the law of Diminishing Marginal Utility seems hard to understand and is some pretty big words it isn't that hard. Imagine you Mom buys you the video game for your Wii that you have been wanting more than anything. The first day you have it your playing it all day and don't want to stop because it is so much fun! The second and third day you still play it quite a bit, but soon after by the sixth, seventh day after you really aren't as excited to play it because you've already beat some levels and it isn't as new and excited anymore. After a few weeks, your probably barely playing the game anymore because you beat it or maybe your stuck on a level. That is Diminishing Marginal Utility, its great at first, but after time it ends up being less exciting.
If I were to explain the idea of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a fifth grader I will relate it to something with their lives. Its difficult to explain that even with an input, there is still a maximum output. One scenario that could be used is to relate it is to an apple orchard. One farmer could pick enough apples to produce a profit, but if he hired 10 more workers it would be more efficient and they would be able to gain a larger profit due to a larger apple supply. However if the farmer were hired 100 farmers it would be inefficient because there is only a certain number of apples available shoud be picked in the orchard because they would still produce the same amount of product.
When you talk about marginal productivity to a fith grader can be challenging when you relate to capital stock. However, you related in another scenario say a pizza place. For example, you can tell the fith grader when you start to eat the first four slices of pizza you will not get fulled but when you start to eat the twelve slice of pizza you start to say no more pizza because you are full and might be sick so that will call diminishing marginal productivity in the begining it will go up and later it will go down
I would relate the idea of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to eating a box of a dozen donuts. When you eat the first 2-3 donuts you wont be that full but somewhat satisfied. the more donuts you eat the fuller you'll get and probably end of getting sick to your stomach causing diminishing marginal productivity to decrease --oakford gross
well its like when you love to play a sport for example lets take basketball. you wake up and feel great, you get all streched out are your wheaties and are ready to go, you play the first game and BALL, you feel good, you play another game and you ball again!, you still whant to play so you play another one, you odnt bal as good becasue your legs and arms are getting tired, but you still whant to BALL! you play again and you do ok but you are exhausted!!, but you love it, you have to play again!!! so you do! and you suck, you can barely, move, but you wanna play again. its likethis, you eventually have had more than you can handle! so much that your productivity is no longer bueno!!! es muy MALO!!!!!
The best way i would describe dimishing marginal productivity to a 5th grader would be playing a board game with some friends. The game can start with just two people but more people can be added depending on the players available for the game- for this instance, lets say 4. After the 4 person is introduced in the game, the degree of fun is maxed with the most amount of player used. If another person tried to jump in, the same amount of fun will probably stay the same and not increase.
If I were to explain dominating margians to a 5th grader I would use Disneyland as an example...although it would be great to be able to be there all alone but after you rode even your favorite ride a thousand time it starts to get boring...if they didn't understand that I would tell them imagine getting a new toy...now that's the only toy you can play with it would be fun for a while but then it gets old
i dont know how to explain of diminishing margianl productivity for 5th grade children but, first of all it simply can tell as more capital is add, marginal product of capital(MPk) declines. so, less capital stock is higher MPk. well, let's suppose there is a party. and guests should bring just one food but one more friend as every time dropping by. first person(one person) bring one food. second, there are 2 people and one food and third, there are 3 people and one food. like this, as going to incread dropping by people and just one food, then food is not enough to eat. so, we can say the food is capital. as more time goes by, the food, capital decline.
The diminishing marginal productivity capital is hard to explain because it is dificult to apply. When speaking to a fifth grader you have to use real life terms and things they like to help them understand this term. Say you tell your child that for every time he does his homework you will take him to McDonald to get chicken nuggets. Well everytime he does his homework you give him that incentive so in reality he is doing his homework without really knowing he did it. So at the end it is a plus because he is getting fed but doing his homework. At the end that is what dimishining marginal productivity capital means.
Coming up with one way to explain diminishing marginal productivity to a fifth grader is to use cooking as an example. Mom cooks in the kitchen, but it seems like a lot of work she has to do. You decide to help out, and then your sister comes along to help, too. The work that you and mom were doing got more cooking done and faster. Your sister's help, on the other hand, taking up more of your time supervising than helping, was more in the way and slowed you down.
In order to explain to a fifth grader how the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital works, I would use an example of something that they see at their playground during recess. Let’s say that the school gets a little extra money and decides to buy a trampoline for the kids to jump around and have a little fun during recess. At first, only one class at a time (15 students) has the chance to get on the trampoline and the students have a great time. Due to time constraints, the principal decides to now include 3 classes each session. The students do not have as much fun due to the lack of space. The trampoline has a limit because of its size, which explains that after a certain point, the output (“fun” for this example) diminishes overall.
Perhaps a good explanation of Diminishing Marginal Productivity of Capital for a 5th grader is a sandbox analogy. If one child builds a sand castle. There will probably only be one sand castle total during the time allowed during recess. If he is joined by another classmate, there will be two. But after three, four, or more other classmates, the sand will start to run out, therefore no longer producing more sand castles.
The concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital can be difficult at times to understand. If I were to explain this to a fifth grader I would try to relate it to operating a lemonade stand as such. So you decide to build a lemonade stand and sell lemonade. You make four pitchers of lemonade and make five dollars a pitcher to make a total of twenty dollars for your self on the first day. On the second day you decide to hire a friend so that while you sell the lemonade and your friend can make the lemonade. On the second day you and your friend sell ten pitchers of lemonade at five dollars a pitcher to make twenty-five dollars for the each of you. On the third day you decide to hire a second helper to make even more output. On the third day you sold the lemonade, your friend made the lemonade, and the second helper helped a little with both but couldn't do much in the end because of the limited amount of lemons, pitchers, and table space. At the end of the day you sell fifteen pitchers of lemonade and made twenty-five for the each of you, this is the same amount profit as you made working with your friend. So you find that working with just one friend is most beneficial in that you get the greatest profit with the minimum requirement of workers. That even if you add more input (workers) you would reach a cap of output (profit). All this hoping fifth graders still know what selling lemonade in front of their house is.
ReplyDeleteKenny Tavoc
The concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital is in some way quite difficult if one attempt to explain this in a pure and theoretical econommics to a 5th grader. However the best way to explain to a fifth grader about diminishing marginal returns is to use real life examples and analogies of efficiency. Supposed we tell them to imagine if anyone of them had ever been to a buffet. Considering their first plate that they had picked when they were really hungry, their appetite probably would have ranked nine or ten on a scale from one to ten. After the first full plate, they might want to try the second one but because they were full, their appetite would drop down to seven or six. And so on and so forth until they reached a point when thinking more about food would just make them fell sick. And that would be a good situation for 5th graders to imagine when trying to get the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital.
ReplyDeleteBinh Pham.
The concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital could be difficult to explain to a 5th grader because some have a diffrent way of understanding things, then others. The best way that I could imagine explaining diminshing marginal return to a 5th grader is to talk about toys and money. Two of the favorite things for 5th graders. The 5th grader doesn't want to go to school or soccer practice becasue they rather be home watching t.v or playing video games. His parents tell him that if he goes to school and soccer practice for a month straight they will give him $5 for each day he goes to school and practice, its a total of $140 plus a toy. He would much rather go to school and practice, then stay home and be lazy.
ReplyDeleteWhen you talk about marginal productivity to a fith grader can be challenging when you relate to capital stock. However, you related in another scenario say a pizza place. For example, you can tell the fith grader when you start to eat the first four slices of pizza you will not get fulled but when you start to eat the twelve slice of pizza you start to say no more pizza because you are full and might be sick so that will call diminishing marginal productivity in the begining it will go up and later it will go down
ReplyDeleteIf i were to explain diminishing marginal productivity to a 5th grader i would give them the example of additional help when building a sand castle. At first when having one person working on a sand castle it would take that one person a while to finish. when you have two people work on the sand castle it will have a greater amount of outcome because they will be able to finish way faster than if just one person was working on it but once you start getting more and more people involved eventually the advantage of an additional person will stop since there wont be enough space for everyone to help out it, every further additional person wont have much effect.
ReplyDeleteAfter trying to explain diminishing marginal productivity to my brother, I found out that he best understood this idea when I explained it to him in physical terms. I told him to imagine that a construction company had one truck. And then I told him that the construction company bought two more trucks because of how well their business was doing. However, by the fourth truck I told him that the company no longer needed trucks because the company output stayed constant. As a result, the fourth truck was only used if one of the other trucks was in the shop because the company's output stayed constant.
ReplyDeleteTo explain about the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital, I can use farming products of farmers as an example. It might be easy for a fifth grader to understand the concept of diminishing marginal productivity. We can suppose that there is assigned farm land area about 10. When only one farmer works for producing crops, he could get all of 10. However, if there are one more farmer, so total is two, they would divide profits with each other by each 5. One more step, three farmers would have own crops which is one-third of the land if three farmers work to produce crops. This example can show that marginal productivity could be diminished when the number of labor goes up and other conditions are constant to a fifth grader.
ReplyDeleteSang-Ah Kim
The law of diminishing marginal productivity of capital means that as you continue to add capital in a country for example, the capital will increase the growth of that country but at a diminishing rate. This concept can be difficult to explain to a 5th grader because most children think that more is always better. The iron logic of diminishing returns says differently; more isn’t always better. If I were to explain this concept to a 5th grader I would use one of my all-time favorite games called Jenga. In this game you basically build a tower of wooden blocks. The wooden blocks of this game could represent capital, such as delivery trucks or machines used to speed up production for a company. As you add wooden blocks to create your tower, the height of the tower grows, but at a “diminishing rate.” The diminishing rate of this example would be that as you add each block it eventually becomes weaker and weaker until the tower becomes so tall and unstable that it collapses. If a company continues to add numerous delivery trucks each one will become less helpful because the company only has a limited number of employees to drive the trucks so the company will, in a way, collapse like the wooden tower in Jenga.
ReplyDeleteMallery Wassink
I believe that the easiest way to explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital is to a fifth grader is to relate it to an example that they would understand. The fifth grader decides to quit school and sell the oranges that grow from his orange tree outside his house. The fifth grader is picking oranges, seting up his area where hes selling his oranges and actually selling his oranges. The fifth grader is tired of doing all te work so he hires a employee (another fellow fifth grade dropout). The first day he made thirty dollars. The second day is much easier on the young entrepreneaur, all hes doing is selling while his employee is picking the oranges and settng up the work place. The second day the fifth grader makes thirty dollar, same as the day before but hes has to pay his employee for his labor.His end profit is fifteen dollars. Another drop out is hired and on the third day each fifth grader has there own job. Now, the boss fifth grader realizes that he doesnt need the third worker because he only need one worker to do all the work. The third worker is fired and the mazximum profit possible is recieved with the minimal amout of workers.
ReplyDeleteLauren Castro
This is how you explain the law of marginal diminishing productivity to a fifth grader. You give him this example; think of a remote controller for your xbox or PS3. This controller is new the buttons work perfect, making playing video games a lot easier. Now let's say all your friends come over and each of them use your controller. Over time the the buttons start to wear down. If the buttons don't respond as quickly, your not going to be able to play as well. Every time you play the buttons are going to get worst and wort, and that is the law of diminishing marginal productivity. The more you use a limited resource it gets less productive from when you first use it.
ReplyDeleteIsmael Bejerano
I would simply say think about how your teacher ask couple students to pass back papers to other students. When a teacher is doing it by his or her self is takes longer but when she/ him gets other student to help her/ his it goes a little faster but when other student join the process is a little faster. Your teacher is using diminishing marginal productivity.Diminishing marginal productivity is basically a big line of teacher pets trying to earn brownie points. Haha!
ReplyDeleteJenga, farming, teachers' pets!!?? These are great ideas...keep them coming.
ReplyDeleteI would tell the fifth grader, to understand diminishing marginal productivity, it would be like working at a restaurant. For a server to produce more money in tips, they would need to maximize the amount of tables that they can take at one time. If there are more workers working at a time, that would result in servers having less tables at one time, resulting in less money in tips. So sometimes having more workers may seem like a better option but in reality it may not be as beneficial as it would be if they had the proper amount of workers at a time.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to explain the idea of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader I would try and relate it to something relevant in their lives. Its difficult to explain that even with a fluctuating input, there is still a maximum output. One scenario that could be used is to relate it is to an apple orchard. One farmer could pick enough apples to produce a profit, but if he hired 10 more workers it would be more efficient and they would be able to gain a larger profit due to a larger apple supply. However if the farmer were to hire 100 farmers it would be inefficient because there is only a certain number of apples available to be picked in the orchard. Since they would still produce the same amount of product. This shows that more is not always better.
ReplyDeletei would explain the law of diminishing productivity in a simple way to a fifth grader.
ReplyDeleteI would use an example of eating candy. when you start out eating your first, second, third, maybe even fourth piece you still get the satisfaction of eating candy, but once you start pushing it to eat more and more candy eventually your stomach starts to hurt and suddenly the candy doesnt look so appealing. the amount you reach where your still enjoying the candy and the amount that u begin to regret eating the candy is the diminishing marginal productivity.
the law of diminishing marginal productivity can also be explained in a way that is very easy to understand.
ReplyDeletesay for example that we have building blocks. you begin to stack the blocks on top of each other and you begin to go higher and higher, you notice that the blocks are starting to get wobbly. when you place one more on top they all tumble down to the floor.
the law of diminishing marginal productivity would be the point where the blocks begin to look crooked and unstable, at this point you have too many blocks and there is no need for them because they will only cause all the blocks to collapse.
Basically in simpler terms how I would explain to a 5th grader about the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital would be relating it to a soccer team. For example, a soccer team always has has more than 11 players in the team. Yes, at a game only 11 of them including the goalie play but, they have extras on the benches just in case they need to trade players sometime during the game either for injury, expulsion or tiredness. Of course, they can't have all players playing at the same time because they would have to pay them all high rates (when you play at a game you get payed more). Instead they rotate players to not overpay to the players and also have extras for an emergency case and not loose the game which would also bring money loss.
ReplyDeleteThe way i would explain the law of diminishing marginal productivity to a fifth grader would be the waiting in line to go to the restroom. When the two stalls in the restroom are occupied by two kids, there is no wait in line. But lets say three kids want to go to the restroom. One has to wait a while longer. Now we get to six kids who want to go to the restroom, the line will now take a long while till the kids can't hold it anymore because of the long wait. this will be the law of diminishing marginal productivity because the kids who were first got satisfied but as the other kids have to wait that satisfication starts to go down. to where some may have an accident.
ReplyDeleteI think I would use a simple example to explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity to a fifth grader. I would use the example of studying for a test. The night before an exam it is good to study to get a higher grade. Studying for one hour would probably make the grade a lot higher than studying for zero hours. Studying for two hours would again increase the grade making it higher than studying for one hour but not by the same percentage as the first hour. Studying for three hours would again raise the grade by continuing to add to the knowledge base. Adding more and more hours will continue to add the benefit of more knowledge but at a smaller rate. After a certain point it is possible that the student has learned as much as possible for one night and that studying for additional hours would actually decrease the test grade by making the student too tired to perform at his or her best. The moral of the story is that it is important to find the most efficient use of your time on the night before a test balancing between study and rest.
ReplyDeleteIf you manage the pizza restaurant with your future wife in the future. At first time, you don't have enough money to employ cookers. so first time you and your wife make pizza by yourselves. You and your wife can make 5pizzas in hour. Your restaurant is more and more famous, so many custumers visit your place. That makes you employ more cookers. If they are 3 more cookers, they can make 10pizzas in hour. you put more money,but just increase 5 pizza in hour. When you and your wife can make 2.5pizzas per each person in hour. However 3more cookers,you and your wife make 2pizzas per each person. Actually the total making pizzas are increased, but per each person making pizzas are decreased. This is the one example of diminishing marginal productivity of capital.
ReplyDeleteA factory has only ten tools, ten machines, and ten workers. As the company increases number of workers, the total production of the factory will grow but very very slowly. This is because after certain point, the factory will be overcrowded and workers will begin to form lines to use machines and tools. To solve this problem, the firm will have to build more factories and buy more machines and tools for labors.
ReplyDeleteFor a 5th grader, I would compare the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to Santa Claus. When a child is really young they really believe in Santa which would be the great boom of growth in capital. But as they get older they start to believe in him less and less until they don't believe in him at all which would be the point where the curve increases to zero.
ReplyDeleteI would have to compare it to having friends over for a sleepover. If you invite two other friends plus yourself, that is a good amount of people. You will have plenty of room on the living room floor and just the right amount of the good snacks your mom bought. But if you invite four people plus yourself things are getting kind of crowded on the living room floor and all the good snacks are gone right away! So while having a lot of friends over seems like a good idea(input) it really actually takes a hit on your goodies and personal space(output).
ReplyDeleteThe best way to describe diminishing marginal productivity to a 5th grader would be on terms they can relate to. If you decided to sell girl scout cookies door to door but are only allowed to sell to people in your neighborhood , on the first day you can sell 7 boxes a day, the next day you decide to have a friend help and are able to sell sell 11 boxes a day. You hire one more friend and can sell 14 boxes a day. So as you add more and more cookie salesgirls each person become less productive because you are limited on the area you can sell in.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital means that when you bring in another worker to work with you in your shop at the begining you will be making more money, but once you bring more and more workers into that same shop you will be losing money because the shop and all the material in the shop will not be enough for all those workers to work in anymore.
ReplyDeleteThe best way to describe diminishing marginal productivity to a 5th grader would be on terms they can relate to. You can relate this to inviting people for a pick-up basketball game. So, you invite enoough people to have a 5 on 5 game. But when people start bringing a friend along just in case if theres not enough to show it gets to be too many people. So, yea it's great that you know now that you can invite different people to play a game but at the same time when everyone shows not everyone is going to have fun having to switch in and out.
ReplyDeleteJosh Pond
I would describe diminishing marginal productivity to a fifth grader by giving them an example about cupcakes. Let's pretend you just learned how to decorate cupcakes using icing, sprinkles, etc. You make a dozen cupcakes and you bring them to school to share amongst your 5 friends. They are so fascinated with how beautifully decorated the cupcakes are, they start telling how students about them and pretty soon the cupcakes are all gone and you didn't even get a chance to taste one!
ReplyDelete- Ashley Rice
i would try to explian to the kid that diminishing marginal productivity is all about finding the right balance to produce the most goods or production. for example 5th graders love video games. but if they have only onr video game to play they will get bored very fast. on the other hand if he has too many games the kid would not have enough time to enjoy them all. this is why it would produce more production if the kid only played 3 or 4 games at a time so he can play with tem all equally and not get bored.
ReplyDeleteI will explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader with managing pasta restaurant. I opened the pasta restaurant with 2 chefs. Because pasta was delicious, many people visited my restaurant. Therefore, I decided to hire 2 more chefs. Because I could sell more pasta, I could earn more money. Many customers still visited my restaurant. I hired 2 more chefs. However, my restaurant kitchen was small. There were no enough spaces that six chefs can work. Even though I hired 2 more chefs, I couldn’t earn same amount of money than I hired first 2 chefs.
ReplyDeleteMinju Kim
To explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a fifth grader I would try to relate it to something that they could relate to, like doing homework. If when doing math homework it would take quite awhile if you didn't have a calculator. So say you get one! You could do your homework a lot quicker. But what if you bought another calculator? Would it really help you that much more than the first one? What about having three or four? After the first one the rest don't really help so much. That is the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital; more is not always better.
ReplyDeleteI would explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity to a 5th grader by relating it to something simple they would understand. For example say a 5th grade girl wants to start wearing make-up, her mother said it was fine if she went through her make-up and picked out what she liked. The next day before school she puts on blush and mascara. She goes to school and everyone says how pretty she looks, so the next day before school she decides to put on more make-up, on top of what she had put on the day before she also puts on a light pink lipstick. When she goes to school everyone says again how pretty she looks. So the next day on top of the make-up she had already used she also adds; dark eye shadow, eye liner, and dark red lipstick, now when she arrives at school instead of complements she comes to find everyone saying she looks like a clown. What she did was considered diminishing marginal. Her change in output (make-up) resulted in a decree of labor output (complements) from too much of the output (make-up) on her face. (Why her mother let her were that much make-up in the first place, I am not sure!)
ReplyDeleteI think the best way to describe the law of diminishing marginal productivity to a fifth grader would be using a game of soccer as an analogy. Usually on the playground a game of maybe 6-on-6 would be the perfect amount to fit on the field without overcrowding it. When, one by one, more people come to the field and want to play there comes a point where it's no longer a game of soccer it's just chaos on a field. As more people come to the field the game becomes less fun because there is no control, and not everyone touches the ball.
ReplyDeleteStan Hunsucker
If I was to explain the concept of diminishing mariginal productivity to a fifth grader I would try to explain it in a way they would relate to it better. Like video games for example. They most likely would want to invite a friend to come play with them because it would be more fun but if they keep adding more and more people to come eventually it would be too crowded and the initial value of fun for the individual will diminish. Which then can be related to like events when you add more variable resource or labor to a fixed company or set plan then the marginal value will evenutally lose its value. Back to the games example if you only had 2 controllers to play video games and you invited more then that then someone is going to be left out
ReplyDeleteThe way I would explain this concept to a fifth grader is in terms of ice cream. I would explain and tell them that you eat the first bowl of ice cream and then you think it taste really good so you want more, and maybe even a third time, but after that it starts to be too much and if you eat anymore that you are going to start feeling really full and get to the point of you might even get sick.
ReplyDelete-Bryce Kerns
If i have chance to explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity to a fifth grader, I will try to explain them to easy way. As an example, drinking sodas. When you start to drinking sodas, by one can or two can and even more, it will goes well into your stomach and feeling of sparkling and icy, but after reached your limit to drinking, you will feel hurt on your belly and you cannot even drink more sodas anymore. SO I will explain more that the amount you reach when you feel great with soda, after that point when you feel sick for drinking soda is the diminishing marginal productivity.
ReplyDeleteI would explain it to a5th grader in terms of a food, for example cupcakes. at first you'll love eating them. the more you'lleat the happier you'll feel, but eventually your hapiness will start to diminish because you'll start to get full and they will not have the same impact. So even though you are still eating a food that you like, the happiness that you get from each cupcake will be smaller though.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to explain diminishing marginal productivity to a 5th grade i would put it in terms of playing with their favorite toy. When you are given a new toy for christmas or your birthday, it becomes your most favorite toy to play with. As time goes by, and after playing with this toy over and over again it gets old and you get tired of playing with it.
ReplyDeleteThe way I would explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity would be by using a real life example. That would be an easier method to understand the concept rather than giving them the actual definition. The example I would use would be candy. At first, they'll be really eager to eat a bag of candy. The more bags of candy they eat, the less appealing it'll be because they'll probably get sick of it.
ReplyDelete-Daisy Guan
I would explain it with the balance of having toys and keeping a clean room. The smaller amount of toys you have the easier it is to clean up your room. However, that means there are less toys to play with during your free time. If you had too much toys it would take a lot longer to clean your room. And probably wont look as clean. So you would have to find a balance to where you can have enough toys to play with but at the same time make it easy to clean them up!
ReplyDelete-Alexandria Guerra
First I would explain it from the text:
ReplyDeleteThe law states that when more & more units of variable input are used with a given quantity of fixed inputs, the total output may initially increase at an increasing rate & then at a constant rate but eventually it will increase at diminishing rates. That is the marginal increase in total output decreases eventually when additional units of variable factor are used, given quantity of fixed factors.
Then I would give an example that would help them visualize the concept:
For example if one farmer is working a crop of land the output will be increased if another farmer starts working as the fixed factor was underutilized. If we employ more & more farmers to the same farm the output would decline as the fixed factor would be over utilized by the variable factor & the total output would decline. Which means the more farmers you have the less each farmer work each farmer does, which makes adding any more farmers useless.
It is hard to explain the diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader because it is a hard concept. It could be easier if someone explains it by using things that kids like. THE BEST FORM WOULD BE CANDY. sAY A KID LOVES CANDY BUT HATES BRUSHING HIS TEETH. wRLL A PARENT WOULD TELL HIS KID i WILL GIVE YOU A CANDY EVERYDAY AS LONG AS YOU BRUSH YOUR TEETH. wELL IF HE DOES THAT THEN HE IN REALITY WILL BEGIN TO DO WHAT HIS PARENTS TELL HIM AND THAT IS WHEN THE diminishing marginal productivity of capital. That is how I would explain it to a 5th grader.
ReplyDeletePriscilla Leon
I would describe diminishing marginal returns to a five year old as clothing. The more clothes you have, the more laundry you have to do. It seems important to accumulate more clothes to have more choices but as these increase the stress of additional laundry and storage makes it seem less useful. The ideal situation would be have just enough good choices rather than too many.
ReplyDeleteSara Nydam
I have a 5th grader at home so i tried explaining this to him with something he likes. I used a soccer game as an example. I explained how if the game was started with missing players on both teams and then players started arriving that was like increasing capital. The score is the output which would be increasing throughout the game as well as the number of players. The more players the teams have the stronger opponents they become, so less goals are scored. Once the teams are at full potential there is still scoring opportunities but not as many as before. If my explanation was not correct then my 5th grader will not understand the diminishing marginal productivity of capital, but he will not be late to his soccer games.
ReplyDeleteThe way I would demonstrate to a 5th graders is by showing an example by selling candies to fundraise for a school field trip. so for example the school is going to supply the 5th grader with candies and it is his/her job to sell them to make money. so an easy way to demonstrate diminishing marginal productivity is the kids friends will help him sell the candies faster and the more help he gets the higher and quicker are the profits. and if the you want to be smart about selling a candy if the candy is a dollar a piece you can sell it for 2 dollars a piece and you can profit money to yourself and to your friends for helping you.
ReplyDelete-Arthur Macias
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ReplyDeleteCoincidently, I have a nephew who is in the 5th grade and since my family revolves around sports, soccer to be exact, I went ahead and explained diminishing marginal productivity to him in those terms, soccer terms. I gave him an example using his soccer team. I told him that if he ever wondered why his soccer coach had others helping him out with coaching them. Ofcourse, he said no. So I went ahead and explained to him why it was so. I told him that first of all, coaching a soccer team of a bunch of 4th and 5th graders isnt easy. I told him that the reason why his head soccer coach had his assistants was to help him out with coaching each practice. It made things run alot smoother and faster. I told him how if he didnt have the assistants it would be much more difficult. Kind of how diminishing marginal productivity works. I explained to him how having the assistants keeps things constant and that, that was one of the reason why his (my nephews) soccer team was so good because the assistants did such a good job. That was the assistants payoff or reward.
ReplyDelete-Ulises Ramirez
I would explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader with an example they could understand. I would tell them that diminshing marginal productivity is when by adding more in efforts to increase productivity, a point is reached where you no longer increase productivity, but instead it stays constant and eventually starts to decrease, or diminish. I would tell them to imagine a company that hired a person to clean their building. I would say it takes the cleaning person two hours to clean the whole building. Then I would explain to them that by adding one more person it cuts the time in half, so it takes two people one hour to clean the whole building. And that by adding a third and fourth person it takes a half hour and so on. But evenutally there is a point where the company has hired too many people that things start going wrong. People are getting in eachothers way, and their isn't enough supplies (bceause buying more would cost more money), and that the salaries of all these extra employees is costing the company more money and is in fact less effective then just paying two people for one hour.
ReplyDeleteTo explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader, I would give an example of a person running and having energy drinks. If you give a runner one energy drink, they will be able to run a little bit faster because they have more energy. However, if you give the runner like 5-10 energy drinks, it doesn't mean the runner will run faster because a person can only run so much at a time. The more input you put does not necessarily mean there will be more output.
ReplyDelete- Ashley Ignacio
The best way I can explain the concept of Diminishing Marginal Productivity of Capital to a fifth grader is by comparing it to ironing shirts. For example, I would tell the student that the concept works as ironing shirts for neighbors as a job in his or her room. You can iron twenty shirts a day at the price of three dollars a shirt summing up to sixty dollars a day. But you realize if you hire a friend you can iron a total of thirty shirts, (ten more shirts than you could by yourself), paying him or her two dollars for every shirt he/she irons, making ninety dollars (you making ten more dollars and your friend twenty). But now you have less space in your little room to do work. But you still want to make more money so you get another friend to help you, but he or she can only iron five shirts due to lack of space in the room for the same pay as your first friend. So as you can see the more friends you hire the less shirts you can iron.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to explain diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader I would try and compare it to school. You could take 6 classes and think that's a good thing because you're getting so many classes out of the way. But do you really have the time to keep up on all your studies for every class and maintain A's and B's? On the other hand you could take 3 classes. You wouldn't be getting as many classes out of the way, but I bet you would have more time to focus on each class, thus resulting in better grades. Another way I'd try to explain it would be to compare it to friendship. You could have 20 friends. That may seem good because you have so many friends. But are they all true, good friends? On the other hand, you could have 5 friends. You don't have as many friends now, but I bet the 5 friends you do have would all be true friends. I guess the point I'm trying to make is, more of something is not always better.
ReplyDeleteI would tell a fifth grader,
ReplyDeleteImagine you sleep your 8 hours every night, but some of those nights, you have nightmares and you lose some hours of your sleep. You then decide to sleep earlier so that you can get enough sleep and rest well. The first few days you feel that the more you sleep the better active you will be at school, but if you keep doing it for the rest of the week, instead of being active, you will start getting lazy because you have gotten used to sleeping a lot more and all you want to do now, is sleep all day and you will be less productive
I can explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader through a simple example. I would use the example of managing a clothing store. If you start to manage a clothing store, you will not have enough money to buy clothes and hire employees at first. So, you will try to sell your product alone. Also, you should make clothes alone. If you try to make clothes hard and promote your own store, many customers will visit your shop and buy clothes, then you can make more money. When you earn much money, you will start to hire many employees. Then, they will work hard for making clothes and selling your product. I think it is better way than you work alone. However, if you hire many employees, you should spend so much money for cost of labor. Also your shop will be crowded without any customers because you have many employees. Relatively, a number of employees and clothes which you and employees made are increased, but number of clients will be decreased. I think that this is the example of diminishing marginal productivity of capital.
ReplyDeleteMyung-Rae Kim
I would explain the concept by comparing it to playing a video game. The more you play the game the less interesting it is. At first the game is great then after a while it starts to become dull. Then you have to find ways to have the game more interesting. Either that or get another game. Thats how I would try to relate it.
ReplyDeleteI would explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity to a 5th grader using the example of a band. Let's say we start off with a drummer, bassist, and lead guitar/vocals. The band is limited to playing certain songs and they want to expand their sound so they get another guitarist to play, let's say, rhythm guitar. Now we have a drummer, bassist, lead guitarist/vocal, rhythm guitarist and now the band is able to play a wider range of different tunes with the different musicians. If the band was to add more musicians; 1. More money would have to be divided amongst themselves. 2. They would have to be really coordinated to play well together. 3. They would have different ideas and views as to making the songs so the productivity would decrease.
ReplyDelete-Moises Lizama
The way I would explain diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a fifth grader would be in the form of Valentine’s Day grams. It is appropriate for the Holiday season! I would set up the table in the classroom and have the proper material already laid out for them. The children would have to fold the paper into a card formation, punch a hole in the card, glue candy inside, and so on. Through this I would place them in a line and add more and more children into the mix to show them that increasing labor to the production does not help – it’s diminishing. Another way to explain it would be in a demand and supply example. The demand for the Valentine grams will increase the output of the grams, once that happens you will incur more cost, but if you don’t have enough customers you have a diminishing marginal productivity as well.
ReplyDeleteNatalie Navar
To explain the concept of diminishing mariginal productivity to a fifth grader, I would try to explain it in a way they would understand. For instance, I would relate it to a sport as in golf. Golf is a difficult sport and having a golf coach or swing coach would help your game. But if you didn't have a swing coach growing up in the golf game would be much harder. This I would relate to a fifth grader because many fifth graders have a mind set to make things hard on themselves because they don't know better. Not only would a golf coach would help out the fifth grader and remain a consistent swing. This not only would help your golf out but it would make things much easier on a fifth grader. The reason why is to make the swing more constant and much easier to play the game and have fun.
ReplyDelete-Kenny Pigman
One way I would explain diminishing marginal productivity of capital is to give an examples of what they can relate to. Like proposed to them that let's have sell pies but we only have one stove and five pie pan and every tools that we need we only have one (we call those capital). As we finish making the pie we sale them and we make a lot of money now we hire more people to work for us so we can make more pies, but since we only have limited tools the workers have to wait to uses the tools that is needed to make our pies so the next time we sale we didn't produce as much pies as we did because the workers was waiting instead of making us go faster. This is what we call diminishing marginal productivity of capital.
ReplyDeleteDiminishing marginal reminds me about example in psychology. This example shows how the satisfaction of any service or product diminishing by consuming more. For example, a person can be satisfied and happy with the first units of any product. Then the following units will be less benefit for him than the first units, because the satisfaction degree will be diminishing gradually by consuming more units.
ReplyDeleteI'd hand a 5th grader one pen. "Write." I'd hand them a second pen. "Write." Fun yeah, but less functional. After three or four pens I'm sure they would start to get the idea that, while another pen still may add some additional fun, it decreases in functionality. I'd probably never mention the term "diminishing marginal productivity of capital," though. They don't deserve a headache.
ReplyDeleteIf i were to explain to a fifth grader what diminishing marginal productivity of capital is, i would refer to it as getting to the lunch line in order to eat food. You gather up various fifth grade colleagues, and set a truce between each other, of whom ever gets to the lunch line first helps out their fellow companion to cut in line. The award for the fifth grader to let the other companions cut in line, is having a piece of fruit or whatever they want to give him in that given moment. overtime everyone in the group will get their share of goods. This will also take stress of some fifth grade colleagues, for the fact that they do not worry about getting to the lunch line in such a dramatic way.
ReplyDeleteIf I had the ability to explain to 5th grader students the topic of diminishing marginal productivity I would choose a topic that they would enjoy like IPODS. I will tell them that we own a Ipod Factory and we make them. I would explain to them what fixed resources are and that we need to make Ipods in a time manner. If I hire 0 workers my output will be 0. I will tell them I will hire more workers to produce more. Then I will ask them If they want more?? While we hire more workers there would be a marginal product of negative>.Then I would ask more students to partici[pate and in the factor I have less resource and more workers that would have alot less space. HIring to much workers would bring us to a negative output.
ReplyDeleteManuel Marroquin
003717102
It is pretty hard to explain such an abstract concept, the diminishing marginal productivity rule, to fifth graders because they may not fully understand it. Hence, I believe that giving vivid and comprehensible examples can be very helpful to them. For example, there are two children using scissors to make crafts. Now there is only one pair of scissors. Let’s say, they can make two crafts within one hour. If I provide them with two pairs of scissors, they can double their efficiency of making crafts; however, if I provide them with three pairs of scissors. Their efficiency of making crafts cannot be increased any longer because each of them has already had a pair of scissors. Extra pairs of scissors can be regarded as unnecessary resources supplied. These unnecessary resources cannot increase the total productivity.
ReplyDeleteSihong Fang
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ReplyDeleteDiminishing marginal productivity is a satisfaction will be diminished by get quantity when goods that is consume or get is increase. Let me take an example. When I am hungry, I eat a hotdog. At the first time, I can really enjoy a hotdog. This will make me get decent satisfaction. However, I cannot be happy when I eat one more, two more or three more. This will cause me to refuse hotdogs when I am full.
ReplyDeleteSora Ko
My opinion to explain diminishing marginal productivity is mainly about looking for the best balance to maximize the profit. If I have a pet shop, I have hired 3 persons working for me, but it is too busy when pet shop opened, they can not be able to serve all of the customers, so that I lose some deals. So I found one more person to work for me, I received more money, then I did it one more time, but the profit is not as much as before. So we have to find the good balance when we doing the business.
ReplyDeleteI would give a example to them for explain diminishing marginal productivity.
ReplyDeleteIf someone pull weeds in a greenhouse. He or she can pull 100 weeds in an hour. If one more person pull weeds together then can they pull 200weeds in an hour? I say no. They can't do that. They just pull 180 weeds in an hour. Also, one more join that working. They pull 270 in an hour.
Like this, when each one more join that working the amount of increase will be smaller and smaller. That is a significant example diminishing marginal productivity in labor.
Also, diminishing marginal productivity of capital is same thing.
Sungmin Lee.
I would explain to a 5th grader with crayons. When there is a pack of 24 crayons and two kids drawing, the crayons are shared easily. As more and more kids enter the room to color, the less crayons there are to share. Until to the point where there is 24 kids and 24 crayons.
ReplyDeleteI would explain this concept to a fifth grader with the idea of some sort of a band, just your typical rock band. You start of with a vocalist/rhythm guitar, bassist, drummer, and lead guitar. Then you add in backing vocals plus another acoustic guitar, and maybe a saxophone. This would mean that the productivity and musicality in the band would increase, as well as a wider variety of music that can be played. This would lead to less money distributed to the members because of more people joining the band.
ReplyDelete-Dominic Finazzo
I would explain this concept in a way that I remember as a kid, so in elementary school one of my aunts would watch us while my mom was at work so we would be at her house. She would make us lunch and then after we were done with our food we could go play with all the toys. So there was 5 of us including her son, so the first person done would get to go play with as many toys as he or she wanted first, then the second one would get to play with some of the toys that were left, and so on. So the more people that were added as they finished eating only had so many toys to play with leaving maybe only a few to play with for the last child.
ReplyDeleteI would use an example involving involving people and a well. Let's say you have a water well which can have two people getting water from at a time. Imagine only you are collecting water and selling it to thirsty people. You make some good cash to spend on bubble gum and baseball cards but then you think, "Why not expand," so you hire your friend to help you. You both collect water from the well and sell it and make more money than before. With so many baseball cards and bubble gum you think to your self,"Why not expand?" So you hire one more friend to work for you. But he is getting in the way because the well only can have two people at it at a time. At the end of the day of selling water you make less money. There is a good amount of labor/people to have working which you must find.
ReplyDelete-Simon Cornell
if i were to explain the diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a fifth grader i would decribe it as a tatto shop. Say for example you have a tatoo shop that you start by yourself.You make one tattoo an hour and charge 100 dollars a day at the end of the day you make 700 dollars. You decide to hire a friend to increase the amount of tatoos that can be made. you double the production and make 1400. so you decide to hire another friend and the next day you make 1500. the next day you hire another and you make the the same amount. the production can not increase becuase of limited capital of goods and nthe demand for your product.
ReplyDeleteTHe diminishing marginal returns to a fifth grader goes alil something like this... So lil child when we look at the graph and the different line that goes up and then down on our graphs shows us something. This graph is mathematically showing us things that we can put into words. It is showing us that at first the graph increases and increases UNTIL... it gets to a certain point where everything is even, the sea is still... and the graph reaches this point of equilibrium. After that you can see that production starts to decreases as Inputs increase or as they say their are "two many cooks in the kitchen", so your business starts to actually lose money even when you produce more. It is costing more to make more so thats no good.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading other classmates thoughts on this concept, I would do my best in simplyfying the thought of diminishing marginal product of capital. Let's say there's a family of four, who's considering a family cell phone plan. Of course there is a father, who is a very busy business man and is being affected by this recession (money). The dad is the first unit of capital and if he get's a single person plan he get's more minutes on his cell plan and has a less expensive plan. This is the input. However if he adds his 5th grader son (who doesnt't need a phone) as well as his teen age daughter, and wife to his plan (who he needs to contact)then he would have less minutes and the bill would be a more expensive one, which he can't afford. This is the output. The capital goods are the minutes he would be willing to have and the fixed factors is the money and family members.
ReplyDeleteAn easier concept to teach a fifth grader about diminishing marginal product of capital would be by explaining to them how important it is to get enough sleep but too much sleep on the other hand isn't good. For example if they sleep all their eight hours they will be able to pay attention in class and be ready to learn. Now for every extra hour of sleep that they get they become lazy and wanna sleep more. They go to school feeling really tired because now they have slept more that what they were suppose to.
ReplyDeleteThe easiest way to explain diminishing returns with a 5th grader would be eatting cookies. Almost every kid loves cookies. So you would tell them that the get to eat the first cookie and it's good. Then you give them a second cookie and they enjoy that too, but they are getting more full. Then another cookie and another and another. They start getting full and too much sugar and most little kids start to get sick. So after maybe (lets see...a 5th grader...) the 20th cookie? The kid will start loosing interest in the cookie and each cookie they eat will make them sicker and sicker. Thats how I would explain diminishing marginal returns to a 5th grader.
ReplyDeleteI would explain the concept of diminishing marginal capital by using candy. On Halloween all they think about is getting lots of candy to eat. When they achieve getting tons of candy they would start to eat it non stop. But as they keep eating candy their appetite will start diminishing and they would slowly get tired of eating the candy so much that they would feel sick. Then they would get so sick of the candy that they wouldnt want to even touch it.
ReplyDeleteAssuming most kids in the 5th grade play video games, I’d use the most popular real time strategy game known as, “StarCraft II” to explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital. This game is a perfect example of economics because it’s based on building a base and a military force by harvesting resources with the workers you have readily available at the start of a game. In the game a player must harvest resources from a geyser (known as “Vespene Gas”) using a number of workers to bring back to the player’s base, which is used as a currency to build an army, additional workers, and buildings that amount to the player’s base. Only one worker at a time can enter the geyser to collect a canister of gas, however, having two, or even three workers collecting gas from the same geyser increases efficiency. Unfortunately, adding a fourth, fifth, or more number of workers to collect gas from the same geyser does not increase efficiency, which therefor leads to the opportunity cost of using those additional workers for completing a different task during the game. In conclusion, allocating three workers to a geyser achieves maximum efficiency.
ReplyDeleteI'll use the Characters Peter and Joe. Joe gets more allowance than Peter, which gives Joe more capital or spending power allowing Joe to advance faster than Peter. Peter will not be able to compete with Joe, because Joe has more capital to use. This means if Joe wanted he could buy more candy for example than Peter, in turn if Joe wanted to sell the candy, he could also gain more profit and earn more capital
ReplyDeleteIsmael Navarro
explaining this to a 5th grade i would simply say, if your on the jungle gym playing with 2 friends is fine, but the more friend or people start to come to the jungle gym the more crowded it will get and the less time you will be able to play in it.
ReplyDelete-german coreas
If i were to explain this concept to a 5th grader, I believe the candy example would work the best. The sports examples are great as well, but then you have kids who arent interested in sports. If I give you one peice of chocolate, its tasty, AND mysterious. I'll give u another chocolate from the See's box, it will still taste good, and you will still be excited because it'll be something different than the first one. But after so long, the chocolate will upset your stomach, and not only that, but the "mystery factor" will get old to you. I think using treats in general would be the best way to go if attempting to explain this phenomenon to a 5th grader.
ReplyDelete-Maya Darby
I would try explaining dimishing marginal productivity of capital to a fifth grader in the terms of working in a restaraunt. Imagine your a manager of a restaraunt, you have one waiter who works for you and you have 100 people who come in every day. But, you hire another waiter, well the amount of people who come in to your restaraunt hasn't really changed, you now have 105 people a day; so it now costs you double to serve a few people more. Now, say you hire a third waiter, but still you dont really serve more people then when you had only one, and even two. You now have 110 people, but now your paying three people but not making much more money for the amount of help you have. It costs you more money proportionally to pay the workers than the money you make. You make less money total!
ReplyDeleteThe way i would explain this to a fifth grader is by using the example of a farmer, which even helped me understand it better. I would explain if you hire one farmer plant corn to work on the farm you will get 3 rows of farm land planted. But if you hire one more then you get 7 rows completed you will more than the double amount completed. But if you hire a third one you only get 9 rows which is not much more, but it does cost you 3 times more to get only 9 rows completed. So in the end it cost more to have 3 workers because you don't have as many rows completed. So the amount of rows completed would go down, realizing you don't need as many farmers.
ReplyDelete-Polet Milian
explained diminishing productivity to a fifth grader, just like that would explain it to anyone else. You can only produce so many widgets before producing the next widget does not become profitable. Those diminishing productivity.
ReplyDeleteMmm good question this would be very easy to explain to a fifth grader i would simply tell them
ReplyDeleteWhat my mom use to tell me if we go to the movies for your bday you can take however many friends you want but the more mommy has to pay for the less money you get for your bday !
I would say look at diminishing marginal productivity as consuming twinkies and your satisfaction. When you eat one twinkie you are very satisfied, but the more and more you eat the less satisfaction you get until there is no more desire to eat any more twinkies
ReplyDeletei would explain diminishing marginal productivity in terms of candy to a 5th grader. you eat a lot and a lot because it tastes good but after a while your going to realize it doesn't taste good anymore because its too sweet and its making you sick to your stomach. 5th graders looove candy.
ReplyDeleteWell professor your right 5th graders are very smart, so in this case they might have a better chance at explaining it to me. But first I would give my explanation of diminishing marginal productivity in terms of shopping for shoes. You only have one pair of feet so why do you need every color and style when you can only wear one pair. After awhile you’ll have so many shoes and no money to go anywhere.
ReplyDeleteI would you explain the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a 5th grader, in the way I would explain it to my nieces; lately we have been playing a lot of board games, at first (Life) they were pumped, the second round (Clue) they were still somewhat excited, but by the end of the third (Monopoly) they were beat, during the middle of the third game they were no longer as eager to win nor as wise with their moves, they just wanted the game to be over so they could move on to another activity.
ReplyDeleteI would describe it as the more you make the lower it will be worth. Because the U.S. is so advanced it has to take a big jump in technology for it to make a big jump
ReplyDeleteBecause we are dealing with extra units of input needed to yield a similar output we know that an imbalance is going to happen. If I tell a fifth grader that in order to play five minutes on a video game he will need to clean five dishes in order to get that reward. However, because the value of him cleaning those five dishes is diminishing, he will have to do 10 the next day in order to get the same five minutes on that video game. The following week maybe he will have to clean 15 dishes in order to earn that five minutes on the same video game.
ReplyDeleteI would explain the concept by comparing it to eating candy. The more you eat the candy the less appealing it is. When they first start eating the candy they love it but as soon as they eat too much they are feeling sick and tired.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion we can relate to a fifth grader with food, when you are hungry you can eat so much but with limit. If you eat more than your limit you can through up and get sick, and that’s what we call the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital. First it goes up so high to a certain point than it start going down.
ReplyDeleteI would tell the fifth grader(girl for example) that it basically compares to the newest barbie doll out. When the toy first releases its something you can't wait to get and when you finally do it's something you can't get enough of. But as you get more and more of the same or similar doll it starts to loose its appeal and you no longer desire it at the same level you did before.
ReplyDeletei would compare it to their schooling. Ex. say on your very first homework assignment you forgot and got a 0!. The very next one you turn in can increase your grade tremendously but after that the more hw you turn in the smaller you grade increases
ReplyDeleteIf i were to explain diminishing marginal return to a 5th grader i would compare it to summer break. On the first day of summer break you are so excited and have so many things that you want to do. As the days go on you begin to have less and less to do. Sooner or later you have grown bored of most things and don't have anything to do. Eventually you are then eager to return to school.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the law of Diminishing Marginal Utility seems hard to understand and is some pretty big words it isn't that hard. Imagine you Mom buys you the video game for your Wii that you have been wanting more than anything. The first day you have it your playing it all day and don't want to stop because it is so much fun! The second and third day you still play it quite a bit, but soon after by the sixth, seventh day after you really aren't as excited to play it because you've already beat some levels and it isn't as new and excited anymore. After a few weeks, your probably barely playing the game anymore because you beat it or maybe your stuck on a level. That is Diminishing Marginal Utility, its great at first, but after time it ends up being less exciting.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to explain the idea of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to a fifth grader I will relate it to something with their lives. Its difficult to explain that even with an input, there is still a maximum output. One scenario that could be used is to relate it is to an apple orchard. One farmer could pick enough apples to produce a profit, but if he hired 10 more workers it would be more efficient and they would be able to gain a larger profit due to a larger apple supply. However if the farmer were hired 100 farmers it would be inefficient because there is only a certain number of apples available shoud be picked in the orchard because they would still produce the same amount of product.
ReplyDeleteWhen you talk about marginal productivity to a fith grader can be challenging when you relate to capital stock. However, you related in another scenario say a pizza place. For example, you can tell the fith grader when you start to eat the first four slices of pizza you will not get fulled but when you start to eat the twelve slice of pizza you start to say no more pizza because you are full and might be sick so that will call diminishing marginal productivity in the begining it will go up and later it will go down
ReplyDeleteI would relate the idea of diminishing marginal productivity of capital to eating a box of a dozen donuts. When you eat the first 2-3 donuts you wont be that full but somewhat satisfied. the more donuts you eat the fuller you'll get and probably end of getting sick to your stomach causing diminishing marginal productivity to decrease --oakford gross
well its like when you love to play a sport for example lets take basketball. you wake up and feel great, you get all streched out are your wheaties and are ready to go, you play the first game and BALL, you feel good, you play another game and you ball again!, you still whant to play so you play another one, you odnt bal as good becasue your legs and arms are getting tired, but you still whant to BALL! you play again and you do ok but you are exhausted!!, but you love it, you have to play again!!! so you do! and you suck, you can barely, move, but you wanna play again. its likethis, you eventually have had more than you can handle! so much that your productivity is no longer bueno!!! es muy MALO!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe best way i would describe dimishing marginal productivity to a 5th grader would be playing a board game with some friends. The game can start with just two people but more people can be added depending on the players available for the game- for this instance, lets say 4. After the 4 person is introduced in the game, the degree of fun is maxed with the most amount of player used. If another person tried to jump in, the same amount of fun will probably stay the same and not increase.
ReplyDelete-Nicolete Afable
If I were to explain dominating margians to a 5th grader I would use Disneyland as an example...although it would be great to be able to be there all alone but after you rode even your favorite ride a thousand time it starts to get boring...if they didn't understand that I would tell them imagine getting a new toy...now that's the only toy you can play with it would be fun for a while but then it gets old
ReplyDeletei dont know how to explain of diminishing margianl productivity for 5th grade children but, first of all it simply can tell as more capital is add, marginal product of capital(MPk) declines. so, less capital stock is higher MPk. well, let's suppose there is a party. and guests should bring just one food but one more friend as every time dropping by. first person(one person) bring one food.
ReplyDeletesecond, there are 2 people and one food and third, there are 3 people and one food. like this, as going to incread dropping by people and just one food, then food is not enough to eat. so, we can say the food is capital. as more time goes by, the food, capital decline.
The diminishing marginal productivity capital is hard to explain because it is dificult to apply. When speaking to a fifth grader you have to use real life terms and things they like to help them understand this term. Say you tell your child that for every time he does his homework you will take him to McDonald to get chicken nuggets. Well everytime he does his homework you give him that incentive so in reality he is doing his homework without really knowing he did it. So at the end it is a plus because he is getting fed but doing his homework. At the end that is what dimishining marginal productivity capital means.
ReplyDeleteBy Adan Garibay
Coming up with one way to explain diminishing marginal productivity to a fifth grader is to use cooking as an example. Mom cooks in the kitchen, but it seems like a lot of work she has to do. You decide to help out, and then your sister comes along to help, too. The work that you and mom were doing got more cooking done and faster. Your sister's help, on the other hand, taking up more of your time supervising than helping, was more in the way and slowed you down.
ReplyDeleteIn order to explain to a fifth grader how the concept of diminishing marginal productivity of capital works, I would use an example of something that they see at their playground during recess. Let’s say that the school gets a little extra money and decides to buy a trampoline for the kids to jump around and have a little fun during recess. At first, only one class at a time (15 students) has the chance to get on the trampoline and the students have a great time. Due to time constraints, the principal decides to now include 3 classes each session. The students do not have as much fun due to the lack of space. The trampoline has a limit because of its size, which explains that after a certain point, the output (“fun” for this example) diminishes overall.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a good explanation of Diminishing Marginal Productivity of Capital for a 5th grader is a sandbox analogy. If one child builds a sand castle. There will probably only be one sand castle total during the time allowed during recess. If he is joined by another classmate, there will be two. But after three, four, or more other classmates, the sand will start to run out, therefore no longer producing more sand castles.
ReplyDelete