Entrepreneurs and Enterprising People
Division III: Gr. 7-9
Characteristics and Contributions of Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs seek out opportunities for starting new ventures or programs – e.g., problems, needs, and wants that exist. They generate ideas and mobilize resources to create new ventures to address the opportunities they identify. Entrepreneurs help make goods and services available. Their ventures create opportunities for others through employment. Competition helps lower prices and improve quality. Some characteristics are common to many entrepreneurs. The enterprising skills, displayed by most entrepreneurs, can be valuable to anyone. And entrepreneurs are not only found in business – but in NGOs, governments, schools, anywhere. It is important that youth have an opportunity to develop enterprising skills and explore their interest in, and potential for choosing a career as an entrepreneur.
Please Note: Teaching Units provided are for support and consideration by teachers and are not prescriptive.
Learning Map and Supports for Instruction
The “Learning Map” identifies teaching opportunities in Alberta’s curriculum for each topic and you will find them as part of the Support Teaching Materials provided here. Teachers can, of course, integrate the target areas of financial knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviours anywhere they can find a fit. The Supports for Instruction provide videos, animations, and links to other resources to support teachers in their efforts to improve the financial literacy of their students.
DownloadKnowledge
- Opportunities for entrepreneurs are the needs, wants, challenges, and problems consumers and others face
- The contributions that entrepreneurs make to our economy and communities – e.g., new products and services, better products and services, lower cost products and services, etc.
- Characteristics and skills common to many entrepreneurs
- What enterprising skills are and how they can be applied to any kind of work, challenge or endeavour
- How consumers influence what entrepreneurs produce and the concept of “consumer sovereignty”
- How entrepreneurs combine the different kinds of resources to make goods and services that people need and want and are willing to buy
- Appreciate that a balanced life means considering the importance of things other than money
- Identify entrepreneurial ventures in their community that address the community’s needs and wants
- Identify one or more businesses in their community that did not succeed and consider why it(they) didn’t succeed
Skills
- Recognize examples of entrepreneurs in their community and the goods or services that they provide
- Recognize examples of goods or services that are provided by governments in their community
- Identify opportunities as they arise” in their school or community –something that people need, want, or see as a problem
- Generate ideas in response to opportunities
- Mobilize resources – people, products, money, etc. – to complete a task, solve a problem, create something new in their school or community
- Identify enterprising skills and work to develop or improve those that they think would be of personal value
Attitudes/Behaviours
- Take initiative and act on opportunities they see – in their class, school, home, community
- Believe in their ability to be creative and seek opportunities to apply and demonstrate their creativity
- Work well with others on a team to try and address an opportunity
- Generate ideas in response to opportunities
- Reflect on their personal interest in entrepreneurship
- Reflect on their own enterprising skills and identify skills they would like to improve or develop