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Questions for Wishes and Rainbows

1. How does Roota find Colorland? b. She found it by accident.

2. Why did the first flower die? d. It needed light to live.

3. Will the Pebblepeople ever have enough flowers? b. no

4. What economic term describes when there isn't enough of something? a. Scarcity

5. a. Why is the story called Wishes and Rainbows?
They Pebblepeople wished for all the colors in the rainbow.
b. What other possible titles can you think of?
Searching for Colors, The Way to Colorland, Where are all the Colors? Roots's Lucky Day

6. a. Why does Roota choose to distribute the flowers by age?
Roota chose to distribute the flowers from oldest to youngest because it is the easiest and fairest way. That way, eventually everyone will get a flower, because when the flower dies, they will use the seeds to grow more flowers. The older people will get the flowers first because if Roota used another system, they might die before they ever received a flower.
b. Is this a fair system? What other possible systems might she have chosen?
This is a fair system, because everyone will get a flower in time. She could have chosen several other ways, such a random picking or by having people buy the flowers.

7. If color becomes easily obtainable in Pebbleton, what new products will be available to consumers? What old products would become more desirable?
If there is lots of color, new things such as color TVs, crayons, markers, decorations, story books, clothes, and such will become available. Old products that would become more desirable would be things that are only available in black and white.

8. a. What other changes might take place in Pebbleton as a result of the introduction of colored flowers? What economic changes?
Some changes because of the introduction of colored flowers could be that the town would be happier and brighter, and there would be more products for people to buy. Also, people might visit Colorland more often, or even move there as more opening are found/created. As for economic changes, the price of colored things will eventually drop as color becomes less scarce.
b. What industries might benefit? What new jobs might be created?
Any industry that creates colored products will benefit from the introduction of color, as well as the gardening industry. Many new jobs might be created as new factories open up to produce the new colored products, which in turn will lead to more stores and more employees in the stores, as well as more jobs in the gardening industry to take care of the flowers.

9. How does this story show scarcity? What is scarce?
Scarcity is when there isn't enough of what people want. This story illustrates the concept of scarcity because there isn't any color in Colorland to start with, and then there is a little color, and everyone wants some and there isn't enough for all.

10. What ways might the Pebblepeople find to reduce the shortage of color and flowers?
To reduce the shortage, they might find/create more openings to Colorland, find ways to create artificial light to grow flowers by, or have scientists research different ways of creating colors.

11. a. What resources are scarce in the United States today?
Some natural resources that are scarce are resources such as oil, natural gas, and in some places clean water. For human resources, in some industries there is a shortage of skilled workers or a shortage of cheaply paid labor.
b. What happens to the price of scarce resources as they become more scarce? II. The price goes up.

12. When Roota and Rockie were growing the flower, what was a...
a. Natural resource? Dirt, water, seed, sunlight
b. Capital resource? Bucket
c. Human resource? Them