 Economics sites help students learn to be smarter
consumers, savers, and investors. The sites provide interactive activities,
lesson plans, games, curriculum materials, articles, and other resources
for teaching and learning about economics. Included:
Fourteen great sites for teaching personal finance and economic systems
in the classroom.
Learning the basics of economics and personal finance is a necessity
for financial survival. Learning how to save or invest for retirement,
make wise consumer choices, manage credit cards, and adhere to a budget
can mean the difference between a life of comfort and one of crippling
debt. The Web sites below offer a variety of tool students can use to
practice the skills they'll need in "real life," as well as useful tools
to help teachers show students how their lessons apply to the real world.
Don't
Buy It!
This interactive site teaches children media literacy by focusing on advertising
tricks and techniques in all media. Such activities as designing a cereal
box, becoming a detective, and creating an ad will help kids explore the
tricks of the advertising trade. Children are encouraged to learn how
to see through a sales pitch to become a smart consumer. The teacher section
contains lesson plans to help students learn to evaluate and analyze the
media messages they see.
Gazillionaire
Here's a wacky way to learn about the world of finance -- and a great
way to introduce young people to such concepts as supply and demand, business
costs, loans and interest, and bankruptcy. In this free shareware game,
a player becomes "an intergalactic wheeler-dealer rocketing among the
seven planets of Kukubia as head of your own trading company." Teachers
might want to use the game as an enrichment and/or free-time activity
to supplement the regular curriculum.
U.S.Mint's
Site for Kids
This site, also called h.i.p. (History in your Pocket) pocket change,
offers many entertaining and informative games and activities about coins.
Kids can put together a puzzle of a state quarter, watch an animated movie
about how coins are made, and read lots of fun facts about the U.S. Mint
and what it does. A time machine takes visitors back to look at coins
in U.S. history. A teacher section with lesson and unit plans also is
included.
Virtual
Developing Country
In the Virtual Developing Country section of Virtual Worlds, students
can take a series of five field trips to learn about the developing country
of Zambia in Africa. Each stop on the tours introduces students to the
people and places, as well as to related economic issues. Teachers will
find everything they need to use the resource effectively in the classroom,
including teacher's guides, work sheets, a glossary, and downloadable
data sets, as well as development, geographic, economic and political
background information.
EcEdWeb
The Economic Education Web is a portal to economic education resources
in all forms and at all levels. EcEdWeb's K-12 electronic curriculum has
a K-6 and a 7-12 component linked to national standards. Included are
a list of key concepts students should learn during each grade level and
a set of lesson plans to help facilitate that learning. If you know the
concept you want to teach, start from the K-5 concept list or the 6-12
concept list.
Learn about more great sites for students, parents, and educators
by visiting Education World's Site Reviews
Archives.
Article by Hazel Jobe
Education World®
Copyright © 2005 Education World
04/14/2008
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