Youth Financial Education

Most young people lack the financial know-how and skills to make sound financial decisions, yet everyone needs these crucial life skills for their economic well-being as well as for our nation’s future. Our complex financial and consumer market system, and the many new options and information available over the Internet, heighten the challenges for youth to be financially competent and responsible caretakers of their financial resources. The following programs contribute to youth financial education and are available online.

Programs:

Financial Champions (www.n4hccs.org)

National 4-H Cooperative Curriculum System, a consortium of 4-H programs, authorized the development of this curriculum. Design team members, with financial management and youth development expertise, from twelve states used a nominal group process to select topics for the new guides. The experiential curriculum includes a helper’s guide and two youth guides written for grades 7 to 9 (ages 12 to15) in a variety of settings including 4-H and other non-formal youth groups, home-schooled youth, and youth in traditional classrooms. Accompanying the printed curriculum is an interactive Web game. The Web game uses financial concepts from the curriculum while youth navigate their way to graduation from the Financial Champions Academy. The Web game is free and can be played independently of the curriculum. http://pa4h.cas.psu.edu/curricula/financialchampions/

Kids $ Kash

Kids $ Kash is a 4-issue consumer education program supported by 4-H. A leader’s guide supplements information in the youth issues. Kids $ Kash is designed for at least 4 sessions. A leader or helper is encouraged to expand or rearrange the unit outline to meet the needs of the group, whether it is a community or school enrichment program. Each youth issue has a general topic introduction, purpose statement, and objectives for each activity in the unit/issue. For each issue, the leader’s guide has these major components: teaching aids, procedure, and looking ahead. Major concepts for each issue are:

Issue 1

• Time and money saved by comparison shopping
• Advertisement may tell consumers only part of the story
• Knowledge of needs and wants before making a purchase

Issue 2

• Shopping in different types of stores
• Effective complaining

Issue 3

• Advertising influences consumer behavior
• Shopping sales
• Reading nutrition labels
• Shopping smart

Issue 4

• Deceptive advertising
• Decoding advertisements
• Shop smart for price and quality
• Warranties/guarantees protect buyers

NEFE High School Financial Planning Program (HSFPP)

The National Endowment for Financial Education has offered the HSFPP as a long-standing public service effort, initiated in 1984, to increase the financial literacy of America’s youth. The 6-unit program provides youth with greater knowledge of and ability to manage their personal finances in the areas of setting goals, planning, saving, credit, and risk management. The program uses unique activities, simulations, case studies, and interactive exercises to provide hands-on experience for students to learn and apply the financial concepts that will enhance their attitudes and develop lifelong habits.

This objective program does not promote financial products or services. Printed copies of the HSFPP Instructor’s Manual and the complete HSFPP Student Guide (both in English) are available at no cost. A Spanish version of the HSFPP is available online and maybe downloaded from http://www.cuna.org/initiatives/youth/index.html.

The NEFE HSFPP is offered in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension System, participating land-grant universities’ Cooperative Extension Systems (CES), the Credit Union National Association, Inc., and American Credit Union.

As a complement and enhancement to NEFE High School Financial Planning Program, NEFE provides Web-based programs for educators and others who work with youth. The site provides background information on personal finances and has many suggestions for activities and information to support the written information. The web site does not repeat the HSFPP’s manual or student’s guide. http://www.nefe.org/hsfppportal/index.html

The six units of the High School Financial Planning Program are:

Unit One — Financial Planning: Your Roadmap includes the financial-planning process, goal setting, differences between needs and wants, how values affect needs and wants, and the decision-making process.

Unit Two — Careers: Labor You Love presents the relationship between career factors such as education, experience, earning potential, and identity career options including entrepreneurship and the impact on future financial decisions affected by career choices.

Unit Three — Budget: Don’t Go Broke! introduces the process of creating and following a budget/financial plan.

Unit Four — Saving and Investment: Your Money at Work explains the importance of saving and investing, the time value of money, basic investment principles, and the variety of saving and investing alternatives.

Unit Five — Credit: Buy Now, Pay Later describes the use of credit, the importance of managing credit, credit reports, and credit legislation.

Unit Six — Insurance: Your Protection discusses types of personal and financial risks, methods of protecting against risk, the relationship protecting assets against personal and financial loss, and the financial-planning process.

Youth Financial Education Web Sites:

A G Edwards developed Big Money Adventures for children starting at age 2 and over. Rainbow Castle (ages 2 to 6), Storybook Adventures (ages 6 to 10), and Star Traders (ages 10 to adult) offer age-relevant activities helping kids to learn more about investing money. http://www.agedwards.com/public/content/fcgi/bma/frontpage.fcgi

Banking on Our Future is a site sponsored by Wells Fargo Banks. Banking basics, saving and checking accounts, budgeting, credit, and investing are the topics organized into three sections: grades 4 to 5; grades 6 to 8; grade high school to adult. The curriculum is downloadable or available on CD. http://bankingonourfuture.com/

Consumer Jungle is a new web-based program that helps turn high school students into savvy consumers without putting them to sleep. Students, teachers, and parents will find information and activities aimed at helping the young adults in their lives find their way safely through the real world. http://www.consumerjungle.org/index.html

Consumer Reports for Kids
The Zillions magazine became the Zillions Online Web site in September 2000 and is now Consumer Reports for Kids Online. The site is for youth ages 8 and older. The learning opportunities include:

• Reading, writing, and thinking skills.
• Charts and graphs about toy tests and other ratings to motivate kids to read charts and bar graphs, compare, contrast, and organize information.
• Life skills such as analyzing advertisements and evaluating products.
  www.zillion.org

Cost of Using Tobacco Products--Teen

Don’t Buy It: Get Media Smart (PBS for Kids) is a media literacy Web site for young people that encourages users to think critically about media and become smart consumers. Activities on the site are designed to provide users with some of the skills and knowledge needed to question, analyze, interpret, and evaluate media messages. Specific sections of the site appear in a random order on the home page so you will see different combinations each time you return to it. Advertising Tricks, Buying Smart, Your Entertainment, What You Can Do, and Free Stuff. http://pbskids.org/dontbuyit/

The "It’s A Habit!" Company, Inc. (IAHC) is dedicated to teaching financial literacy and other empowering life skills and habits to youths of all ages, with a focus on young children and their families. The IAHC’s objective is to develop products and services for educators and parents to teach kids basic skills. "It’s A Habit, Sammy Rabbit!" is one of the examples of educational resources and contains two books, a CD, and a poster. http://www.itsahabit.com/main.html

The Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy’s goal is to identify high quality financial management curriculums and other resources for K-12 grades/levels. The Clearinghouse is a database of personal finance resources available from a variety of education providers such as government, business, and non-profit organizations. http://www.jumpstart.org/

KidsBank.com™ (Sovereign Bank) is a tutorial website that explains the fundamentals of money and banking to children. It was developed to provide parents with an informative and fun place to bring their children for answers to money-related questions. http://www.kidsbank.com/

Know Your Money (Secret Service) is a fun site to learn about the United States currency and detecting counterfeits. http://www.secretservice.gov/know_your_money.shtml

LifeSmarts is a fun and educational classroom or group activity for students to showcase their consumer skills while learning and developing new ones as they compete electronically with other students across Pennsylvania. Players and teams may come from schools, families, 4H, FCCLA (Family, Career and Community Leaders of America), neighborhoods, community centers, youth groups, home schools, and other similar communities. LifeSmarts is open to all students in grades 9 to 12. Study the resources and take the practice quizzes. Through the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General’s Public Education and Information Unit, PA teens compete on a statewide level and have the opportunity to advance to the national level. http://www.attorneygeneral.gov/pei/lifesmarts/index.cfm

The Mint It Makes Cents
The Northwestern Mutual Foundation, the charitable arm of Northwestern Mutual, partnered with the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE), in the redesign of the site to emphasize financial literacy. The site provides tools to help parents and educators to teach sound money management and establish sound money habits. www.themint.org

Money Factory (U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing) is a site that helps learn about different bank notes, anti-counterfeiting measures, money facts, and what the new color of money will be. Classroom education materials that meet or exceed national education standards are available free of charge to parents, teachers, and students. http://www.moneyfactory.com/newmoney/index.cfm

Money on the Book Shelf is a program created to inform parents about the books that might be helpful in educating their children about money issues. Using Parent Guides, parents can integrate various fun activities while reading. http://www.unce.unr.edu/western%20new/SubWebs/MoneyOnTheBookshelf/Index.htm

Moneyopolis
The Web site was created to give youth in grades 6 through 8t the opportunity to learn basic financial planning concepts and to provide educators with useful resources. The activity uses a "virtual city that the children must travel." Ernst & Young developed the site as a public service. www.moneyopolis.com

Money Sense for Your Children is a program designed by the Cooperative Extension Service of the University of Nevada to help parents teach their children the skills they need to effectively manage money. The site also links to other universities’ Cooperative Extension Services’ efforts on financial education. http://www.unce.unr.edu/Western/SubWebs/MoneySenseChildren/FinancialEducationSites.htm

Money Smarts (Girl Scouts of America) helps to learn the ins and outs of earning, spending, saving, and investing money. http://www.girlscouts.org/moneysmarts/home.html

Money Talks (University of California Riverside, Cooperative Extension)
This web site was developed by the UCCE Money 2000+ for Teens workgroup with outside funding from the Chase Manhattan Foundation’s Financial Literacy Program. Savings videos, newsletters, games, and ask Sam are part of this site. Games are for one player and range from fairly simple to challenging and could be used for either introduction to the topic or as a summary activity. http://www.moneytalks.ucr.edu/

Planet Orange.
Planet Orange is a friendly and interactive site to help youth on their tour to Moneyland, to learn while exploring South Spending, the Republic of Savings, and Investor Islands. ING DIRECT, the developer of the Web site, is an affiliate of ING--a world leader in providing a broad array of financial products and services in insurance asset management, and direct banking to its customers. www.orangekids.com

Practical Money Skills For Life(Visa) is a free Web site designed to help educators, parents, and students practice better money management skills. To help today's youths and consumers of all ages become financially savvy, Visa has partnered with leading consumer advocates, educators, and financial institutions to launch a national program to improve the nation's financial skills. In addition to providing online tools and resources, free classroom materials that educators can use to teach personal finance are available online or in a binder format. It offers a teacher's guide, student worksheets and quizzes, and interactive brain-teasers that can be played by students via the Web or from a CD-ROM. http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/english/students/

Smart Money University is an investor education site. The different departments are Investing 101, Taking Action, Strategic Investing, Retirement/401(k), College Planning, Short-Term Investing, and Debt Management. There are several challenging quizzes visitors can take. Also, there is a section on Personal Finance. http://university.smartmoney.com/

Stock Market Game
The SMG game gives youth the chance to invest a hypothetical $100,000 in a real-time portfolio. It complements and reinforces existing skills and knowledge in many areas such as math, civic, economics, business, language, and personal finance. The SMG Program is a non-profit program supported by national and local sponsors. In Pennsylvania the sponsor is PA Partnership for Economic Education at 1-800-722-6708. www.smgww.org

United States Mint: Hip Pocket Change Web site was launched by the U.S. Mint. It is designed to be a fun, educational tool for students and teachers that generates interest in coins, the Mint, and U.S. history. http://www.usmint.gov/kids/

Young Investor is a website providing teachers, parents, teens, and kids with information and activities on investing, saving, budgeting, and earning money. Teachers of K to 12 can enhance their existing curricula, while parents can get ideas on how to teach their kids financial matters in a fun way. All activities are given in pdf. format and can be printed out for use. http://www.younginvestor.com/

Young Money was founded to fill in the gap in understanding the concept of smart money management in the 21st century. Its mission is to take a historically complicated subject (Money Management) and make it fun and easy to understand. Young Money is also a publication for young adults. There are 6 issues and a free bonus issue for a $15.95 yearly rate. Each issue is packed with cutting-edge articles written by the top College journalists. http://www.youngmoney.com/

Publications:

An Asset Builder’s Guide to Youth and Money is a practical guide and a positive approach to empowering young people to build competency in financial areas of saving, planning, spending, investing, and sharing. The guide provides information to help youth learn how to make responsible money decisions. It is based on the Search Institute’s framework of 40 developmental assets. The guide is available from the Search Institute for $12.95. http://www.search-institute.org/catalog/customer/home.php

Spending Choices is a 4-page publication that features an activity that demonstrates spending choices made with limited dollars. It can be also viewed in a pdf. format or ordered from the Penn State College of Agricultural Science under the Family Financial Planning and Consumer Affairs subject area. http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/Publications.asp

Other Resources

Godfrey, N. S., Richards, T. (2004). Money still doesn’t grow on trees: A parent’s guide to raising financially responsible teenagers and young adults. Rodale Books.
Godfrey continues to explore a wide range of financial and related issues that families have to deal with while their kids grow and become actively involved in adult life. Written in an easy-reading manner, the book contains a lot of real-life examples drawn from the author’s practice as a family finance consultant and illustrates the importance of teaching money management skills. The author discusses various topics, from learning how to save to looking for a job and dealing with identity theft. Though targeted for a parent audience, the book can be helpful for high school educators teaching financial issues, as it provides ideas for classes and introduces various financial terms.

Godfrey, J. (2003). Raising financially fit kids. Berkeley, Toronto: Ten Speed Press.
The book "Raising Financially Fit Kids" by Joline Godfrey is targeted toward parents with kids from 5 to 18 years of age. It can become a helpful tool for parents to address various money problems encountered by growing children. Raising a "financially fit kid" requires a lot of time, effort, knowledge, and patience. The author suggests different ways of introducing kids to the adult world through teaching them Ten Basic Money Skills at different age stages.

The book might be helpful to high school educators in several ways. They can get a hint on how to organize various group activities relating to money matters. Certain tactics based on age groups are suggested to provide kids with different experiences concerning personal finances.

Affluenza, PBS Special, (1997)
Affluenza is a 57 minute video narrated by Scott Simon who is with National Public Radio. It was produced by Seattle and Oregon Public Broadcasting and supported by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The program explores lifestyles of United States families and households and some of the most profound social outcomes of our times: overconsumption and materialism.

The consumer culture has an enormous impact on our families, communities, and the environment. Unrealistic expectations, hypercommercialism, shopping frenzy, chronic stress, increased bankruptcies, fractured families, and resource exhaustion are the results of the current social and economic behavior of families and adults in the marketplace.

Ways to reverse or at least reduce the materialistic trends in the United States are presented in the video including voluntary simplicity.