January 31st, 2020
A team of Pepperell Middle School students has been named the winning team in the Fall 2019 Georgia Stock Market Game in both Floyd County Schools (FCS) and the 14th Congressional District.
Pepperell Middle School students Brooklyn Duck, Tanner Avery, Brice Harris, and Danny Busby of Mr. Brett Lane’s seventh-grade Social Studies class swept the competition in the middle school division with a portfolio value of $121,832.64.
FCS seventh-grade social studies teachers can implement the Stock Market Game into their lessons through teams made up of three to five students. The Stock Market Game demonstrates real-life applications of economic standards, reinforces team-work skills, and may lead students towards career-choices within the finance and business worlds. Unlike real equity markets, the exercise offers students a safe and pain-free place to learn that the lessons of market economics can sometimes be costly.
According to the Georgia Council on Economic Education, the Stock Market Game is designed to give Georgia teachers a tool for showing students how scarcity, trade, opportunity cost, voluntary exchange, price incentive, specialization, productivity, and many other economic concepts play out in financial institutions. The students use the equity markets as the model for the game. Teams are given a hypothetical portfolio of $100,000 that they invest over a 10-week period. The team from each public school district or independent school geographic region with the highest portfolio value at the end of the trading session wins.
“This is my fourth year participating in the Stock Market Game. I started because it was a county-wide initiative to promote economics, especially finances,” said Lane. “It aligns to our standards and allows students to see how savings and investments are important ways to promote healthy financial decisions that can improve our lives and the economy. I could not be more proud of the accomplishment that these students have achieved. Pepperell Middle School is thrilled to honor their success.”
To celebrate their success, Avery, Brice, Brooklyn, Danny, and Mr. Lane will attend the annual awards luncheon for the Georgia Stock Market Game on May 6 at the Fabulous Fox Theatre in Atlanta.