Brief Description

The study of economics is a crucial part of the fifth grade social studies curriculum. Students are introduced to the concepts of stock and profit as early as Henry Hudson’s Dutch East India Company.  This continues on through the study of early colonial economies and the free enterprise system. Using real time data, students will track the progress of stocks of their choice to see if they can make a profit or will they lose their investment.
Students will learn the concept of positive and negative numbers as they follow their stocks. They will also construct line graphs to predict trends in the stock market.

Standards and Frameworks

Technology Standards

• 3T-E2. Use a variety of technology tools for data collection and analysis
• 5T-E1. Locate information from electronic resources
• 6T-E1. Determine when technology is useful and select and use the appropriate tools and technology resources to solve problems

• 1SS-E5. Describe the causes, course, and consequences of early European exploration of North America, with emphasis on:

                             PO 1. The reasons for European exploration of the Americas
 
• 1SS-E6. Describe the political, religious, and economic aspects of North American colonization
• 4SS-E1. Use basic economic concepts such as trade, opportunity costs, specialization, voluntary exchange, and price incentives to examine historical events, with emphasis on:

 
PO 1. opportunity costs and their relationship to decision-making, including examples of decisions to send expeditions to the New World
PO 2. how price incentives affect people's behavior and choices, including examples of colonial decisions about what crops to grow and products to produce
 
• 4SS-E3. Describe how consumers and businesses interact in the United States economy, with emphasis on:


                             PO 1. how competition, markets, and prices influence people's behavior
 

• 2M-E1. Construct, read, analyze and interpret tables, charts, graphs and data plots (e.g., box-and-whisker, stem-and-leaf, and scatter plots)

 
• 1M-E1. Read, write and order integers, whole numbers and rational numbers

Academic

• Using real time data collected from a financial website, students will construct a line graph indicating the daily price of a stock.

• In the school computer lab, students will be able to access a financial website to obtain real time stock price quotes.
• In the school computer lab, students will be able to use a graphing program to construct a line graph based on real time stock prices.

• Students will need appropriate permission to access the Internet.
• Students will need to know how to access the Internet.
• Students will need to know basic word processing skills.
• Students will need to know basic skills of computer graphing.

A computer with Internet capability
Graphing software such as Excel

Accommodations for Special Needs

• Students can work in teams. Some students might follow fewer stocks than others.
• Sheltered English Immersion students can write in their own language or work with a partner. It might be a possibility to find a financial website in their home language.
• Gifted students could look for trends of an industry as opposed to individual stocks. They might also consider the other data presented on the website when making their predictions.
• All students might investigate computer graphing sites such as Excel to make their line graphs or to present their information in alternate formats.

1. Go to http://finance.lycos.com/
2. Click on Find Symbol (next to the submit button at the top middle of the page)
3. Have the class brainstorm a list of approximately 10 companies whose economic health they would like to follow. Each student will own one share of each stock chosen.
4. Enter each company’s name and click search. You will be given their stock symbol. Sometimes you will receive multiple symbols for your company’s name due to the fact that that name appears in several companies’ titles. Be sure to choose the correct one. Record it and click on it. After the first day you will be able to access that company by typing in its symbol in the Enter Symbol box at the top of the page.
5. You will be taken to a page about this stock. For example http://finance.lycos.com/home/stocks/quotes.asp?symbols=NYSE:NKE concerning Nike shoes. You may choose to track the current (if you access at the same time each day), the previous close, or the open price.
6. Students record the price on their record sheets (see attached examples) and indicate if the stock went up (positive) or down (negative) and by how much. You might choose to introduce the concepts of “being in the black” for positive and “being in the red” for negative and have them record in the appropriate color.
7. This continues over whatever time period you choose. Five to ten days is usually sufficient. When they record, students should understand that the current price from the day before becomes the previous price on the new day.
8. At the completion of the recording period, students will construct line graphs based on their data using a computer-graphing program such as Excel.
9. Based on the data collected, students will make a prediction on which stocks to sell off (negative values) and which might continue to make money (positive values).

• Students will complete a record sheet on each of the stocks they followed. They will be assessed based on the accuracy of their calculations on the record sheet and on the correct understanding of whether their values are positive or negative.
• Students will be assessed on the construction of their line graph. All values will be expected to be entered accurately. The line graph will be labeled accurately with title, units, and descriptions.
• Students will be expected to give at least two valid reasons in predicting whether their stock will make or lose money in the foreseeable future.