Our 5th graders include in their weekly curriculum a section called BizTown. It's a hands on curriculum that exposes our 5th graders to working with personal finance, business finance and economics. Students learn about being consumers and they also learn the business side of economics. They are able to "create their own business plan, calculate operating costs, design a marketing campaign, apply for jobs, vote for city officials and explore careers" (Junior Achievement of Arizona Website www.jaaz.org).
Last, week they were working on the concept of "Free Enterprise" and they broke into small groups and started their own business and created products to sell. They had a certain amount of time to create the products and then presented what they created.
