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Engaging Gen Z Students with Economic Lessons Featuring MrBeast

2023; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.2139/ssrn.4348940

1556-5068

Wayne Geerling, G. Dirk Mateer, Jadrian Wooten,

Generational Differences and Trends

We summarize the application of economic concepts in viral YouTube videos created by Jimmy Donaldson, known more popularly online as MrBeast. His viral videos are known for expensive challenges and are incredibly popular among Gen Z students. We present three lesson plans based on three different MrBeast videos that include episode summaries, key economics concepts, and multiple assessment questions. The lesson plans focus on core economic concepts and include opportunities to teach concepts such as scarcity, opportunity cost, marginal analysis, business costs and production. With more than 135 million subscribers as of this writing and over 22 billion views, MrBeast’s viral videos offer a unique opportunity for creatively teaching economics to a new generation of students.