Week Eight

Past Two Weeks

I can't believe there's only one week left in the quarter! Time flies.

I made it my goal to blog at least once every two weeks. I missed a week for the first time for week seven, but students have been busy working on their vacation projects for the past two weeks anyways, so there wasn't much to report until Wednesday when students began their presentations. It's been fun as they have presented their projects, taking us to various vacation destinations around the world. I wanted to share these with you so you could see how much effort many of them have put into the projects. Students are being given an opportunity to revise this project up to 95% (instead of the usual 90%), so hopefully they will take advantage of this opportunity, as it is weighted at 5 times the normal grade for this class due to the length of time they spent working on it. These are due next Monday, so please encourage your son or daughter to work on this over the weekend.

Here are their links - 

• Trip to Chile
• Trip to Jamaica
• Trip to Ireland, the UK, and France
• Trip to South Korea
• Trip to Italy
• Trip to the Czech Republic and Slovakia
• Trip to Japan

Again, here were the vacation project requirements. 

Also, don't forget to check grades for your son or daughter this weekend. There are only four more days left in the quarter, and only two quarters in the class, so we are nearly halfway through this subject! As a benchmark, the class average is 86% right now.

Upcoming Week

Next week students have been given a great opportunity to see the investment world up close by traveling to Wright State's Trading Room! This field trip is being paid for by the Wright State College of Business. Students will also be provided lunch (it's not free, of course, but it is being paid for by WSU!) This will kick off the actual start to our stock market simulation project, where students will be competing with students in other schools around the state to achieve the greatest returns on their investments. We will be out of the building from 10:30-1:45. We have two students who have yet to turn in field trip forms, so if they don't get those in before Tuesday morning they will have to stay back. Please email Karen Poston (karen.poston@wright.edu) for a form if you don't have one.

This is a picture from the field trip students took to the trading room last year. Should be fun!

Next week students will also continue the pursuit of practical knowledge in personal finance
by creating budgets for when they graduate from college or enter into their lifelong career of choice. Students will research statistics about how much they can expect to earn in the career they want to pursue, find out how much they can expect to pay at their college of choice, and begin figuring out the answers to questions like "What kind of house do I want?" or "Where do I want to live?" As we go through this project, I'd encourage you to talk with them about the not-so-riveting but vitally important topics of paying bills, mortgages, car loan payments, and other costs of living. Conversations like these will really help students learn how economics truly shapes our everyday lives.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at arch.grieve@wright.edu.

Have a great weekend!

~Mr. Grieve