Economics 101

Getting kids interested in economics isn't as difficult as it sounds. Just ask 17-year-old Abby Mussack.

Before last fall, the senior at Blair High School had little interest in the stock market and principles of economics.

“I never really liked stuff like that,” she said. “You look through the newspaper, and it's confusing.”

That's when she started playing the Stock Market Game, a program that allows students to work for 10 weeks to grow a $100,000 virtual cash account into a successful portfolio.

The top three Stock Market Game groups in the state present their portfolios to community and business leaders at a banquet in the spring and are awarded trophies and cash prizes.

The game is just one program created by the Nebraska Council on Economic Education, which teaches economics to Nebraska students in elementary and secondary schools.

Two other games, the Finance Challenge and the Economics Challenge, also are widely used across the state, said Roger Butters, council president.

The games test students' knowledge on topics such as wages, taxation, production and the role of government. The competitions also help students learn how to save money for retirement and how to earn a good credit score.

“We have elementary students who can sit down and tell you how to trade short,” Butters said, noting that more than 300 Nebraska teams participated in the Stock Market Game last fall.

Terry Gregory, Mussack's business teacher, posts rankings for the Stock Market Game each week to show how students' stocks are faring.

“Monday is always a big day because they file in and look at the ranks,” he said. “That competitive aspect really helps and gets them to do well. They're pushing themselves to come up with different strategies to see if they can improve their ranking.”

Lynn Channer, a social sciences and economics teacher at Arthur County High School in Arthur, Neb., said the game gives students real-life experience without the consequence of losing their own money. “As a teaching tool, it's just wonderful because it does things you just can't teach out of a book,” she said.

Becky Vinton, a senior at Arthur County, started playing the game in 2007 when the stock market was unpredictable.

“The stock market was really insane then, with stocks crashing every day,” said Vinton, 18. “It just teaches you how to take a small amount of money and get larger sums of money without really having a lot to work with.”

Teachers say the Econ Challenge and Finance Challenge are equally important to learning. Those games start with students taking online tests in economics and personal finance.

Students with the highest scores advance to the state competition, where they spend a Saturday in the fall at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln taking tests and participating in a quiz bowl tournament.

Students can then go on to the regional and national levels, where prizes are available.

Nebraska was the first state to develop an online competition component. The Nebraska Council on Economic Education created a first-round online competition so kids in rural parts of the state could participate without traveling long distances.

About 30 other states are now using the Nebraska-developed online programs for first-round testing, Butters said.

Last year, about 19,000 Nebraska students used the Econ Challenge and Finance Challenge. Those numbers are inching upward, Butters said.

“At a small school, it's hard to put something together at a low cost that can recognize academic excellence,” he said. “This is something they can do.”

Students who take part in the programs have a “leg up” on other students in economics and basic citizenry, Butters said. That's why the council helps make the programs available.

“This gives kids a really good incentive to take hold of their education,” he said. “Economic literacy can mean the difference between success and failure.”

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