This document, one in a series of six Project SCAT (Skills for Consumers Applied Today) units for senior high school students, provides an overview of basic economic skills and consumer practices. Project SCAT is designed to help students develop basic skills, solve problems, and apply consumer knowledge necessary for making wise choices in the market place. Each unit features a content outline, student objectives, activities, resources, a specialized vocabulary, film descriptions, student activity sheets, transparency masters, answer keys, and a student booklet. In this specific unit, students examine the consumer role in terms of the free enterprise system, money economy, and the concept of supply and demand. Students list goods and services consumed by the class in a two-day period, invite an economic expert to speak, write a skit based on an equal treatment society, list products that cannot be judged for quality by just looking, discuss the impact of advertising on the individual, collect relevant articles from newspapers and news magazines, and discuss avenues of recourse for the dissatisfied consumer. The student booklet contains relevant vocabulary, readings, and worksheets. (KC)