Needs and Wants Activity

What do you need? What do you want?

Learning to distinguish between things that are genuinely needed to live a healthy life and things that would be merely nice to have is an important step in understanding our relationship to consumption and sustainable living.

You can generate a thoughtful discussion about needs, wants, and values by downloading the Center's "Needs and Wants" Activity, which includes 32 color cards and instructions.

Grade Levels: 4–8

Key Concepts: People can choose how they will live and work together and how they will go about meeting their basic needs. Societies have very different ways of deciding what their needs are and how to meet them. (Adapted from the American Association for the Advancement of Science Benchmarks)

Estimated time: 30 minutes prep time. 40–60 minutes in class.

Download Needs and Wants Activity PDF [2.4mb]

A Smart by Nature® downloadable resource