Cents & Sensibility

why it's important:

Project Cents and Sensibility focuses on educating the younger generation about the uses of money and how it is important that we use money wisely and responsibly.

the plan of action:

According to the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, high school students who participated in a 2008 financial survey, on average, only answered 48.3% of the questions correctly. From the time the survey was first administered in 1997, the average has dropped 8.7%. Since financial illiteracy is a growing challenge in the younger generation, how might we educate youth on the importance of being financially wise, so that they are better prepared for their economic futures in 2009 and beyond? In order to accomplish our goal of preparing the younger generation for their financial futures, we have created a plan of action. Our team is in the process of creating a series of lesson plans to educate the youth. To do this, we will first gathered information and resources from knowledgeable community members, such as bankers and the math curriculum specialist. Next, our team compiled our research into short segments that can be made into lessons concerning topics, such as spending, saving, and making choices. Also, we will create an activity book that corresponds with the lesson plans, which the students will follow along with and complete. In addition, a game board will be constructed that parallels the skills we will be teaching the students. The game will encourage the students to save their money, and only spend part of what they earn. After we have completed our lesson plans, activity books, and the game, our team will form a partnership with a second grade class in order to educate them about savings and making wise financial choices. Before we visit the class for the first time, a pre-test will be sent to the students so we can assess their base knowledge of money. We plan to visit the class at least three times in order to reiterate our lessons and build on what we will have previously taught them. After our final visitation, we will give the students a post-test in order to evaluate how affective our lessons were, and how much they learned.
In addition, our team is creating and publishing a storybook based on the adventures of our main character, Bill, a personified dollar bill. The book is in rhyme and includes colorful pictures to further educate children about saving money and making choices in a fun and enjoyable way. We plan to distribute these books to local banks and schools to gain outreach. In order to further educate the community about our goal, our team will create informational brochures for parents that will offer advice on how to educate their children about finances. Also, a simplified version of the brochure will be made that will be aimed towards the younger generation that will include fun activities. We will give these brochures to local banks, our county library, and elementary schools. Another way we will gain community outreach is by creating a website that will host information for both children and parents. By completing the implementation of our Plan of Action we will educate the younger generation about finances so they will be better prepared for their futures.
So far, our group has been able to accomplish a great deal, and are on our way to completing even more. For example, we have spoken to multiple people specializing in banking and curriculum. Our team wrote a letter to Michelle Obama, describing to her our mission statement and how we were trying to educate our community. A few weeks later, we received a letter back from her, encouraging our team and recognizing our efforts and goals. The second person our group contacted was Ms. Tennille Wallace, who is a math curriculum specialist for Flagler County. Ms. Tennille gave us very effective and helpful tips on the level and type of curriculum we should teach the students. Next, we contacted Mrs. Lori Gottlieb, who is a local banker. She not only helped us figure out what to teach the children, but also provided us with great resources, such as piggy banks, comics about finances, and saving account journals so the children can keep track of their savings. We also received many important resources from the Federal Reserve Bank, like learning packets and comics to give to the children about the importance of saving money. These actions have proven to be quite important, and have played a great role in laying a foundation for our project.
Besides contacting with these people, we have created a website, a book, and a press release. We have formed a partnership with a second grade class, who we will visit once our lesson plans are complete. Our website, completed on December 18th, consists of three pages: a home page, a parent page, and a children page. The home page contains contact information and pictures of our group. The Parent page contains our Underlying Problem and Plan of Action. The children page contains pictures, tips on saving money, and a link to a website containing games about saving money. The book is in the process of being completed. The dialogue is finished, and we have created a rough draft of the pictures in the book. The book is about our mascot “Bill” who visits the bank and is taught by his friend and banker, Mr. Penn the penny, the importance of saving money. Our team created an article that was published in two different newspapers. The first was released on the Flagler Times November 7th,and the second was in the Flagler Palm Coast News Tribune on November 11th.

how you can get involved: