CARTHAGE, Mo. — In order to survive the business world in America, an understanding of the enterprise system is critical. Carthage High School’s Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) chapter believes that it is important to teach kids about the business world, so they visited the Carthage Intermediate Center. The FBLA Leadership Team planned a three-day project for local fifth grade students.
According to the local FBLA chapter President, Carly Simpson, “American enterprise teaches students important business concepts they can apply to real-life situations. It gives them an interest in business early on.”
There are currently sixteen fifth grade classes at the Carthage Intermediate Center. The Carthage FBLA Chapter chose two classes for this year’s project. The FBLA members were split into two groups. One group was in charge of teaching marketing techniques in Mrs. Webb’s class, while the other group taught students how to make smart investments in Mrs. Cochran’s class.
After the lessons were taught, the marketing class immediately started their activities. They were split into groups of five and each had a leader from the FBLA chapter. Each group chose a project to create and market. The projects included customizable sunglasses, paper plate jellyfish, yarn turtles, and pom-pom monsters.
While the marketing classes were creating their products, the investment classes were playing a revised monopoly game. This game taught the students how to make smart investments and create a budget. On the final day, the two classes merged together and the marketing classes sold their products to the investing classes in the “market”. This taught the marketing classes how to make a profit and showed the investing classes what a smart buy looks like. The goal for the marketing classes was to make the most profit possible.
The winners out of the class were the “Shady Shades” led by Carly Simpson and Ashlynn Patrick.
The project turned out to be a great success. One of the local FBLA goals was to promote future membership in the chapter. Many of the students said they had plans to join FBLA in the future.
