One of my favorite lessons is our annual stock market challenge. Each year I issue a challenge to my students to try and make as money as they can, fictional money as they can, by investing in the stock market. Students are given $1,000 to invest and can choose anything they wish. Students always have interesting strategies to try and make money and they vary each year. In the picture above you will see my 6th period students checking the NASDAQ in order to decided what stocks to purchase.

At the end of the event students ultimately “cash-out” their stocks and we figure who were the winners and losers. This year we have had students gain and lose as much as $350. Students also seem to enjoy the activity as well and seem to take a genuine interest in learning about stocks and how they gain/lose value. Also, this whole process helps the kids learn how much of a gamble the stock market can be at times as well.

Mr. McClung

Normally I’m not a big fan of using cell phones in the classroom, however today we were able to put them to good use. Today I introduced the stock market challenge to my students…in this challenge they are given a fictional amount of money, $1,000, and asked to invest it whatever they deem as worthy. In the picture above you can see one of my students using his stock app checking stocks trying to decide what he will invest in.

This comes after our discussions about the Great Depression and learning how the stock market works. Students will be given 5 days to try and turn a profit on their investments.

Mr. McClung

Today in class we will be continuing our discussions about economy by taking a closer look at more recent economic crisis that we have seen here in America recently…the subprime mortgage crisis. Today we will take a critical look at this crisis by focusing on the major causes of the crisis and how home mortgages were used as deadly investment tool.

In order to do this today we will be using one of my favorite radio programs, This American Life from WBEZ Chicago. We will be listening to the episode titled “Giant Pool of Money” to focus on what went wrong with stock market and the housing market.

Mr. McClung

Mr. McClung

Mr. McClung

Students, today we will be discussing the different types of economies that exist in the world. Today we will be focusing on market and command economies. Your notes for today can be found in the slide show above.

Mr. McClung

Students, today we will begin our unit on economy and we will do so by discussing a few economy terms. Listed below are your terms that we will be discussing in class today.

• Producer – The person or business that is producing the good or service that is being purchased.
• Consumer – The person that is purchasing the good or service.
• Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – Refers to the market value of all goods and services produced in a country in a given period.
• Command Economy - An economic system in which production and price are regulated by the government.
• Market Economy - An economic system in which production and distribution of goods and services take place through free markets guided by a free price system.
• Traditional Economy - Economic systems that pertain in societies with extensive subsistence agriculture. The term may also be used for any economy that falls outside of popular notions of market and command economies.

…there is a bust.

This is a phrase that my students have now learned by heart over the various economic talks we had this year…but today we will be talking about why do bubbles in our economy occur. In theory bubbles should never occur because that would mean that we are placing too much value in invests that are not worth the price we are paying for. We will use all this bubble talk to wrap up our week long look at the stock market and our nations wacky economy. If you would like more information about bubbles and our nations economy in general, check out the podcast from NPR’s Planet Money, which is seen below.

Mr. McClung

My 4th period students checking their stocks using their phones and computers.

For the past week my students have been playing the role of Wall Street investor by tracking stocks and getting the opportunity to buy and sell stocks on a daily basis…with play money of course. Tomorrow we will wrap up our look into the stock market and draw our final conclusions about the project as a whole.

Mr. McClung