Published: April 28, 2008 09:49 am         

Computer skills team places fourth in stock market contest

Mrs. Carroll’s BCIS classes at Mineral Wells High School experienced the Stock Market Game for the past 10 weeks.

SMG is a comprehensive, engaging, real-world program that advances student academic achievement in the core disciplines while providing and understanding of investment concepts among learners in grades nine through 12.

Business teachers use SMG to teach students about business organizations, capital formation, marketing, finance, budgeting, personal finance, consumerism and the securities industry.

Students worked in teams with four to five students per team Merrill Lynch provided a grant the $20 per team costs. Working in teams, the students developed valuable processing skills, such as time management, as well as decision-making, consensus building and cooperation skills.

Students were enthusiastic about SMG because it connects classroom lessons to real-life decisions.

Because of the grant, there were 674 teams that participated in the state of Texas. Mrs. Carroll said she was very proud of all her teams, but especially the one that came in fourth place. This was quite an accomplishment, especially because of the volatile stock market, she said. During the past 10 weeks, students saw the stock market go “up, down” and all-around,” she said. This was a very interesting time to play. Her top team had a net equity gain of $27,761.36.

Each team started with $100,000 to invest. They studied the history of the stock market, researched companies, watched the news, talked to adults and then invested. Each team had to invest in at least five companies, had to buy a minimum of 100 shares in each company, and the stocks could not be less than $5 per share.