JA FINANCE PARK

JA Finance Park helps students build a foundation for making intelligent, lifelong, personal financial decisions through hands-on, realistic site-based experiences. The program includes in-school, teacher-led activities culminating in a visit to JA Finance Park and a post-visit assessment.

The key learning objectives listed beside each activity state the skills and knowledge students will gain.

Unit One: Financial Institutions

Students understand the role of financial institutions and their services by learning about credit, interest, debit cards, saving, investing, and stock. They will identify the advantages and disadvantages of saving, investing, and using credit.

Key Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • identify services provided by financial institutions and understand when/how the services are used.
  • explain debit cards and their uses.
  • define interest and credit.
  • understand the cost of credit.
  • explain the advantages and disadvantages of using credit.
  • list the risks and benefits involved in saving and investing.
  • identify the impact interest rates have on investment value.
  • read stock quotes and determine stock value.

Unit Two: Taxes and My Salary

Students are introduced to different kinds of taxes. They will identify salaries and benefits and see how deductions are made from an employee’s paycheck.

Key Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • define the differences among sales, income, and property taxes, and the purpose for each type of tax.
  • identify the basic principles of Social Security.
  • define net monthly income and demonstrate how it is calculated.

Unit Three: Budgeting

Students experience creating and maintaining a budget and identify the reasons for budgeting. Through case studies, they evaluate budget components and practice making budget decisions.

Key Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • understand who uses a budget and why.
  • identify the components of a successful budget.
  • evaluate the effectiveness of sample budgets.
  • develop spending plans and practice making budget decisions.

Unit Four: Preparing for the Visit

Based on a life situation assigned to each student, they will create budgets for their salaries, evaluate investments, and conduct price research for purchases.

Key Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • create a personal budget.
  • calculate net monthly income.
  • conduct pricing research.
  • assesses investments.

Unit Five: The Visit

Students visit JA Finance Park and apply classroom learning to making financial decisions based on their assigned salaries and life situations. They calculate spending plans and evaluate investment holdings.

Key Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • create a typical family budget using hypothetical life situations.
  • use percentages to calculate minimum and maximum spending allowances.
  • evaluate stock holdings.

Unit Six: After the Visit

Students reflect on their experiences at JA Finance Park. As a class, they discuss their accomplishments and decisions and then write an assessment of their day-long visit. Feedback from parents is included as part of the lesson.

Key Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • demonstrate integration of classroom instruction to the simulation experience.
  • perform a credit-card and investment assessment.
  • conduct self-reflection regarding their visit.

Supplemental Unit Seven: Career Goals

Students identify and rate their interests, abilities, and work preferences. They set goals and determine how to achieve those goals. Students will practice writing a letter of application to a potential employer.

Key Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • differentiate among abilities, interests, work preferences, and values.
  • identify their personal characteristics.
  • rate their abilities, interests, and work preferences.
  • identify their career interests.
  • perform career choice research.
  • write a letter of application to a prospective employer.

JA Finance Park enhances students’ learning of the following concepts and skills:

Concepts–Banking, Budgets, Buying, Careers, Choices, Consumers, Credit, Debt, Exchange, Expenses, Income, Interest rates, Investments, Money, Opportunity costs, Saving, Scarcity, Social security, Taxes

Skills–Analysis, Applying information, Budgeting, Cause and effect, Critical thinking, Computation, Data collection, Decision-making, Filling out forms, Following directions, Graphing, Interpersonal communication, Interpreting data, Listening, Negotiation, Observation, Planning, Problem-solving, Reading, Research, Role-playing, Spending, Taking responsibility, Teamwork

All JA programs are designed to support the skills and competencies identified by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. These programs also augment school-based, work-based, and connecting activities for communities with school-to-work initiatives.