Two teams from Fayette County Public Schools are among the regional winners in the fall 2012 Stock Market Game (SMG), which develops leadership, negotiating and cooperation skills as students compete, according to a press release. The Lafayette and Cassidy teams will receive certificates and T-shirts, and they are invited to the spring awards banquet in Louisville.
The group from Lafayette – sophomores Kate Heinonen, Nathan Sendlein and Michael Takahashi – was the top high school team in the East region with a portfolio valued at $104,606. In the elementary/middle school division, the Cassidy team stood tall in the South region with its total of $103,180. These students, all from the fifth-grade Quest class, included Grace Cordle, McClaine Huffman, Isabel Pedersen and Sara Shadwick.
“They have loved this program and have learned so very much,” said Cassidy gifted and talented resource teacher Barbara Barr, who was assisted by parent volunteer Patrice Perlman.
This fall, 391 teams with 37 teachers and 1,340 students participated in the SMG. Student teams in grades 4-12 received a virtual $100,000 to invest in stocks and mutual funds using a live-Internet trading simulation. They managed their investments closely, striving to create the best-performing portfolio by researching and evaluating companies and stock data.
SMG can be taught as an enrichment or project-based activity, or teachers can incorporate different aspects of SMG into their own curriculum as an interdisciplinary project.
“We participated in the program through the Pre-Engineering Advanced Algebra 2 classes,” said Lafayette math department chair Connie Waespe. “In addition to giving them some exposure to the stock market and what it is all about, I do this to introduce them to Microsoft Excel. We do spreadsheets tracking how our stocks are doing each week and when we buy and sell them.”