Carmichaels High School library now offers a fully outfitted Finance Lab to its students. The lab is unique to the area and provides the students with some exceptional opportunities outside the typical classroom.
“As the middle-senior high school librarian, I am always looking for ways to make our 21st century library inviting and engaging to students,” says Cassandra Menhart. “In January of 2019, I attended a Pennsylvania Council on Financial Literacy teacher training for the Stock Market Challenge.”
This online challenge teaches students and teachers how to invest in stocks, make stock market trades, analyze markets and build stock market portfolios while competing with other students. The program uses a stock market simulation tool that is available to students and teachers for free. The competition and programs are both fun and educational, allowing students to gain hands-on experience while learning to save and invest in the stock market.
“I was excited to bring the challenge and the Stock Market experience back to our students and registered several high school and middle school classes along with 2 elementary classes. The State Wide Challenge ended on April 19th, 2019 and the results of our first competition were very exciting,” shares Cassandra. “We had students ranked in the top 10 in all three schools. The High School placed 3rd, Middle School placed 4th, and Elementary placed 6th!”
“After the great interest the students showed during the stock market challenge, I realized that our school library needed an area where students would be surrounded with current, up-to-date, financial information. A Market Wall/Financial Literacy Lab is the perfect addition to enhance a personal finance course,” she adds.
During the competition, students manage a hypothetical $100,000 portfolio by investing in stocks chosen from the USA markets – American, New York, and NASDAQ exchanges. The new Finance Lab provides the needed up-to-date information and is made up of a MarketWall consisting of two 65 inch screens connected to media players and a 20 ft. LED ticker that streams data for US markets including: world indices, energy, agriculture, metals, livestock, currencies, bonds, and NYSE/NASDAQ equities.
The completion reinforces many of the concepts that students receive during their education and supplements classes the school offers. A Personal Finance course is offered to students in grades 9-12 and covering the following topics: Behavioral Finance, Taxes, Checking, Saving, Paying for College, Types of Credit, Managing Credit, Investing, Insurance, Budgeting
The Finanace Lab was made possible by The Forget-Me-Not Fund of the Community Foundation of Greene County and The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, Chevron, the EQT Foundation and IU1.
Carmichaels students are currently entered in the Elementary, Middle and High School Challenge which began on October 7th and ends December 13th.