Subway Economics

This lesson follows a case study of a busy couple that is challenged by one of their coworker’s to figure out whether it is cheaper to make sandwiches or buy them from Subway. Students get a chance to apply their critical thinking & problem solving skills to a practical problem as well as get a chance to learn basic math in Excel.

Time Frame: 1 block

Set

  • Ask your students how much lunch costs them everyday. Is there a price difference between brown bag lunches and buying it from the cafeteria?

Materials

  • Computer Lab

Instruction

  • If you have a smart board you’ll definately want to set it up to walk through how to use Excel to do math. Don’t know how to use Excel? Click here for a tutorial – it’s easy!
  • Read through the case/problem with the class.
  • Depending on the level and brightness of your class you may want to walk through the basic problem solving steps asked in question #1 on the Subway Economics Worksheet.
  • You may also want to assign students a partner. (optional)

Activities

  • Students will work on completing the worksheet using the internet and Excel.

Extensions

  • You can also have your students figure out if it is cheaper to eat at your school’s cafeteria or make the equivalent product at home and bring it for lunch.

Closure

  • What did you find was cheaper for this couple? Were you surprised? Why or why not?
  • Does anyone work at Subway? How does Subway keep its costs down?
  • Is eating out always economical?
  • What other factors are we not considering in this price comparison? (Opportunity Cost of Time)

Attachments

Websites

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