To bring together what students are learning this quarter about economics, Humanities students worked in groups to create an engaging booth that is part of a “Renaissance Faire” displayed in the library Tuesday and Wednesday.

“Our skill this quarter is to study economics and its effect on culture and society,” Humanities teacher Elizabeth Evans said. “For the Renaissance Fair project, students are looking at topics that range from throughout the world from 1450 to 1750, and then they’re looking at how their topic’s economics relates to society.”

The first step of the students’ process to create their booth was to pick a topic they were interested in.

“My group picked our topic because we thought it was a really unique and interesting topic and I just don’t think anyone’s done that aspect of that culture,” sophomore Eliana Lainez said.

After agreeing on what topic to explore further, students did their planning and research for their topic.

“There is actually a lot of planning we had to do,” freshman Riya Sharma said.  “In the beginning, during the whole brainstorming process, we had to think, okay, what are we going to do, how’s it going to work, are people actually going to want to come to this booth we create, how are we going to be able to tie economics in our booth, and somehow come up with a product with all this in there.”

However, since students are being graded on economics, some groups are prioritizing that facet of their topic.

“One of the biggest things we had to focus on during planning was to make sure that our booth really focused on the economic aspects of our topic because that is going to be our grade,” Sharma said. 

Other groups such as freshman Shreshta Kotha’s group are more focused on making their booth attractive and unique.

“So for our booth, we are making and selling dishes made out of chocolate such as chocolate-covered strawberries, chocolate mousse, and hot chocolate,” Kotha said. “I think our project is very creative and unique since not a lot of people think about selling food because it takes a lot of effort.”

In the end, the whole purpose of the Renaissance Faire according to Evans is for students to understand economics in the modern era in an easier and creative way.

“I want students to have a sense of all the things happening in the world during this time period,” Evans said. “Economics can be a tough topic because it can feel very dry, and yet it is easily applied to every topic in world history so hopefully students will have an engaging way to think about economics.”