This stand-alone financial literacy and applied math lesson is a basic introduction to inflation for middle grades students (grades 7-10). A handout with two versions (complete or note-taking fill-in-the-blanks) is included that answers the following questions: What is inflation? How much is acceptable/desirable? How is inflation measured? Why does inflation increase? When is this a problem? How can the government try to control inflation?On the second page, four math problems (with an answer ke