Go to:  http://sffed-education.org/chairman/    a website of the Federal Reserves education branch.  Here you will play the role of setting the federal funds rate.  You will be setting the rate quarterly for 4 years in an economic simulator that will track unemployment and inflation.  Your job is to keep each (unemployment and inflation low).  You can play the game as many times as you wish.  The assignment is to track each data point (federal funds rate, unemployment rate, and rate of inflation) over the 16 quarters.  Report the data from each quarter in a table and then explain why you did what you did and why the economy responded the way it did.  Watch out, the game will throw you a few curve balls, like an oil embargo.  You wont be graded on the end result (how well you did in keeping both unemployment and inflation in check), but rather on your explanation of why the economy responded to your changes in the federal funds rate the way it did.