The purpose of this post is to share with fellow teachers and parents a collection of educational economics websites that they can use with their students and kids to teach them financial literacy and entrepreneurship. More specifically, these economics resources will help students and kids develop financial knowledge and learn budgeting and investing skills.
Financial literacy is a key component of students overall development as lifelong learners. Financial literacy can empower students to develop sound financial practices and help them make informed decisions for themselves and their communities.
By teaching our students and kids the fundamentals of economics and financial literacy, we provide them with the tools and resources that they need to help them "make qualified financial decisions and confidently take effective financial action that best helps them meet their basic human needs and moves them toward fulfilling their personal, family, and global community goals."7
1. Econedlink
Econedlink provides a wide variety of educational economics and personal finance resources for K-12 students. These resources include lesson plans, videos, activities, assessments, professional development webinars, and many more.
You can browse economics resources by grade, topics, resource type (e.g., activity, article, calculator, lesson, manual, etc), by subject (e.g., AP/IB Economics, Business, CTE, Civics, etc), by instructional strategy (e.g., direct instruction, inquiry-based learning, etc) and by standards (e.g., National Standards in Economics, National Standards in Financial Literacy, Common Core English Language Arts, and Common Core Mathematics).
2. The Stock Market Game
The Stock Market Game (SMG) teaches students grades 4-12 about the world of economics, personal finance, and investing. SMG enables teachers to invite financial experts as guest speakers to their classrooms through an initiative called Invest It Forward. Also, the Teacher Support Center features a huge library of curriculum resources, activities, lesson plans, and standards correlations that teachers can use to teach students real-world skills in economics and financial literacy.
3. Hands on Banking
The Hands on Banking website offers several financial education resources to help students develop their financial literacy skills and learn money management. These resources include information on career options after high school; explanations of what, why, and how banks work; resources on how loans and credit cards work; tips to help with financial planning and insurance, practical tips on money management, budgeting, spending, and saving, insights on how to plan for retirement and how to support oneself financially, and many more.
4. Practical Money Skills
Practical Money Skills is a free education program created by Visa to help teachers, students, and parents learn about financial education and take control of their finances. This program features a wide variety of financial literacy resources including interactive tools, lesson plans, games, apps and many more.
Practical Money Skills resources are divided into three main categories: Learn which is a section that provides educational resources to help students learn about topics related to budgeting, saving, financial institutions, credit, debit, identity theft, etc.
Teach is a section that offers economics resources for teachers (e.g., lesson plans, games, educational standards, and more). The Play section features engaging financial literacy games including Financial Football, the Payoff, Cash Puzzler, Counter, Peter Pig's Money, and more.
5. Investopedia Dictionary
Investopedia Dictionary provides students with a collection of finance terms and concepts together with their explanations. These explanations are supported by video tutorials, guides, and examples.
6. The Council for Economic Education
According to the Council for Economic Education (CEE) website, CEE's mission is to equip K-12 students with the tools and knowledge of personal finance and economics so that they can make better decisions for themselves, their families, and their communities". CEE provides a wide range of resources, trainings, and professional development opportunities (both online and in-person) to help teachers and educators with their teaching of economics.
7. The National Financial Educators Council
The National Financial Educators Council (NFEC) provides teachers, parents, and community leaders with the required resources and trainings to raise awareness about financial literacy. NFEC's goal is to create a world 'where people are informed to make qualified financial decisions and confidently take effective financial action that best helps them meet their basic human needs and moves them toward fulfilling their personal, family, and global community goals'.
Educational resources provided by NFEC include presentation and workshop materials, training courses, funding and revenue resources, standards and teaching framework resources, testing, worksheets, handouts, and many more.
8. Economics Help
Economics Help offers educational resources to help students (and anyone else for that matter) understand economics. These resources include e-books, articles, blog posts covering the latest development in global economy, essays, video tutorials, and many more.
9. Biz Kid
Biz Kid is 'a national financial literacy initiative based on the Emmy Award-winning public television series where kids teach kids about money and business.' The show includes 71 episodes each of which teaches kids 'how to make and manage money by introducing concepts of financial literacy and entrepreneurship via stories of real-life young entrepreneurs, sketch comedy, and money tips delivered by dynamic young hosts'.
Biz Kid also offers a number of financial literacy resources including books, online courses, national and state educational standards-aligned lesson plans, streaming video bundles, and many more.
10. Khan Academy
Khan Academy is another great website that offers economics resources in the form of online courses, video tutorials, lessons, activities, and many more. Khan's economics resources are organized into four major categories: Macroeconomics, AP®︎/College Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, AP®︎/College Microeconomics, and Finance and capital markets.
More economics sources:
Economics A-Z Terms, by The Economist
Economics: Recommended Websites, by Grand Valley State University
Economics Useful Websites by Robert R. Muntz Library
