Personal Finance in Arkansas Classrooms: Activities, Competitions, Guest Speakers & More!
Over the summer, Arkansas Social Studies, CTE, and Mathematics educators attended Personal Finance Day at UCA, an event focused on teaching the Arkansas Personal Finance standards. Through in-depth content sessions and hands-on simulations, attendees learned how to discuss concepts like building wealth, budgeting, credit & financial health from a financial literacy experts.
Resources for Arkansas Educators:
Educators receive free resources like books, curriculum guides, and activity kits at all ACRE professional development events.
Primerica: How Money Works
The How Money Works guide is available from Primerica, a company that provides insurance, investment and financial services. The guide provides an overview of common financial challenges facing individuals and families, as well as financial planning strategies for the beginner. Primerica also has representatives that can arrange classroom presentations for your students. Learn more and access the guide and video resources here.
ACRE Social Studies Library Personal Finance Curriculums
The Arkansas Center for Research in Economics partnered with UCA Finance Professor Dr. Mike Casey to develop several curriculums that are designed to meet specific Arkansas personal finance standards. These units on Credit, Lending, & Debt, Building Wealth, and Mastering Interest Rates include pacing suggestions for class time, writing & discussion prompts, hands-on simulations, and more!
Educators participating in a budgeting simulation during Personal Finance Day at UCA.
Also at Personal Finance Day, UCA Family & Consumer Sciences Professor Dr. Kathryn Carroll gave teachers a sneak peek at her upcoming ACRE curriculum on budgeting. This unit includes an activity where students receive a Case Study of a young adult with specific budgeting and financial goals. Students analyze the case study characters current budget, then provide suggestions for changes their character could take to meet their budgeting and financial goals.
Economics Arkansas Student Competitions
Looking for activities that create some friendly classroom competition? Our friends at Economics Arkansas host several personal finance focused competitions for your learners! The Stock Market Game is a national program of the SIFMA Foundation where students invest $100,000 in stocks, bonds and mutual funds throughout a simulation each semester. A year-long session is also available that begins in September and ends in April. Economics Arkansas has been the facilitator of this program in Arkansas since 1999.
Marsha Masters of Economics Arkansas regularly shares resources and learning strategies with Arkansas educators, as well as helping to facilitate several student competitions!
Economics Arkansas and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis will co-host the 2023 Arkansas Personal Finance Challenge, an opportunity for high school students to demonstrate their knowledge of personal finance by competing against other students in a one-day challenge.
For more information about all of Economics Arkansas’s programs and resources, visit their website here.
Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service
Do you know who your local extension service representative is? In Arkansas, your local co-op may be able to help you arrange a variety of interesting guest speakers for your classes. Faulkner County Extension agent Mary Beth Groce offers a presentation on credit where students learn about credit scores, building credit, using credit, loans, and financial aid.
What resources are you looking for?
Are you teaching a course that embeds personal finance standards this semester? Is there a specific topic or standard that you aren’t sure how to cover? Reach out to us with any specific questions you have or materials you are interested in. If you’ve developed your own lessons and activities for teaching personal finance (or any other social studies topic) consider sharing your ideas on the Social Studies Arkansas blog.
