BRIDGES OVER HOWARD COUNTY
21st Century Community Learning Centers
Service Learning Curriculum
Howard County Public School System
Ellicott City, Maryland 21043
Deal or No Deal? Becoming a Savvy Consumer
Primary Subject: Math
Grade Level: 9-12
Additional Subject Area Connections:
Maryland State Curriculum for Personal
English; Social Studies; Finance Academy (ARL)
Unit Title: Deal or No Deal? Becoming a Savvy Consumer
Type(s) of Service:
 Direct - Working face-to-face with the recipient of the service to
meet his or her needs.
 Indirect - Working behind the scenes to channel resources to
meet a community need. Examples are organizing blood drives
and doing environmental service.
 Advocacy - Making a difference through political action and/or
public education.
Unit Description:
The financial literacy level of a student already affects
his/her daily life and will do this with more at stake as
students enter adulthood. This unit aligns with the new
requirements (as of September 2011) for Maryland Public
Schools to offer programs of instruction in financial literacy
for grades 3-12. The goal of this service learning unit is to
establish the importance of financial literacy in the
viewpoint of the students and then to transfer that
knowledge to others. Students will learn about specific areas
that relate most directly to their daily lives as well as what is
in the near future (i.e. credit and credit cards).
Financial Literacy Education:
Standard 1:
Make informed, financially responsible
decisions
Students will apply financial literacy reasoning
in order to make informed, financially
responsible decisions.
Standard 2:
Relate careers, education, and income
Students will relate choices regarding their
education and career paths to earning
potential.
Standard 3:
Plan and manage money
Students will develop skills to plan and
manage money effectively by identifying
financial goals and developing spending plans.
Standard 4:
Manage credit and debt
Students will develop skills to make informed
decisions about incurring debt and
maintaining credit worthiness.
Standard 5:
Create and build wealth
Students will develop skills to plan and
achieve long-term goals related to saving and
investing in order to build financial security
and wealth.
Standard 6:
Manage risks and preserve wealth
Students will develop financial planning skills
to minimize financial setbacks.
Source: http://msde.state.md.us/fle/
The focus of this unit is how to be a savvy consumer. Students may
not have investments and
mortgages that they are responsible for; they do, however make purchases, often on a daily basis,
and can learn how to be savvier in their choices. By focusing on areas that relate to students now,
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
7/18/2012
Deal or No Deal? Becoming a Savvy Consumer
1
such as unit pricing, percentages off for sales, ways to be critical of advertisements, etc., students
will see the relevance to their lives and discover that getting the most for their money can even be
fun.
Through their final project, this unit will encourage student advocacy skills as they learn to look out
for their own best interest and also how to educate others to do the same.
There are three basic parts to this unit:
1) Establish the importance and relevance of financial literacy in students’ lives;
2) Teach students about selected areas of financial literacy that relate to their daily lives;
3) Have the students create a project of their choosing that teaches others to be savvier consumers.
Potential Service-Learning Action Experiences:
 Students create a project to educate others on principles learned about how to be a savvy
consumer (advocacy)
 Students survey the student body to find out how financially literate their peers are (direct)
 Participate in Junior Achievement event or training (direct)
 Students analyze survey data (indirect)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
7/18/2012
Deal or No Deal? Becoming a Savvy Consumer
2
Best Practices of Service-Learning
Maryland State Department of Education
DEAL OR NO DEAL? BECOMING A SAVVY CONSUMER
1. Meet a recognized community need
Students need to improve their financial literacy. Most relevant to teenagers is how to be a savvy
consumer. Most students are not old enough to have their own credit cards and establish credit,
however, they make purchases on a daily basis and need the financial literacy skills to make the
best decisions for themselves and their families.
2. Achieve curricular objectives through service-learning
Curricular objectives include those listed above for Maryland State Personal Financial Literacy
Education. Peripheral areas relate to English, Mathematics and Social Studies.
3. Reflect throughout the service-learning experience
Reflections will consist of journaling, presenting to other students, choosing songs to represent
where they are in the process – before, during and after, collages and group discussions.
4. Develop student responsibility (Students have opportunities to make
decisions about the service-learning project.)
Students will decide on their advocacy project and how they would like to convey the information
they have learned to other students and members of the community. They will make their choice
based on what they determine to be the most relevant information and the most interesting to
them.
5. Establish community partnerships
Students will work with Central Maryland Junior Achievement, as well as local lawyers and
financial planners.
6. Plan ahead for service-learning
Students will plan ahead for how they will organize their advocacy project, what material will be
covered and who their audience will be.
7. Equip students with knowledge and skills needed for service
Students will learn about the major components of being a critical consumer and what this means
for their lives and their families. They will have sufficient background information before they
begin to plan and execute their group projects.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
7/18/2012
Deal or No Deal? Becoming a Savvy Consumer
3
PROCEDURES
DEAL OR NO DEAL? BECOMING A SAVVY CONSUMER
These procedures represent an example of a service-learning lesson on this specific topic, but can be
changed to meet individual classroom interests or varying community needs. You are encouraged to
adapt this unit to fit your unique classroom and community and to solicit student input in planning
and decision making.
1. Introduction of Service Learning Concept with 8
minute video: “Bring Learning to Life”
http://www.servicelearning.org/lsa/bring_learning
/fullvideo.php
Additional
Interdisciplinary
Connections
2. Introduction of Financial Literacy - Explain why
financial literacy matters (potential resources from
Junior Achievement, Jump $tart and Finance
Authority of Maine Webinar):
 English – Students practice
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:bltV
persuasive argument
ArsbPcJ:www.famemaine.com/files/Content/Training/W
formulation by convincing
ebinars/Financial_Literacy_Wednesday_Webinar.pdf
others about the importance
+why+financial+literacy+matters+to+teens&hl=en&
gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjvKOp936eeTtve_nXuG
of financial literacy.
KSFKWIlnnWnmmY2-TaMVTCdSWUErAhDgrbu6eHoClaiDT2K537lzvXmBmn
 Social Studies – Students
xD1IjZzHYl41RhwZMX7Bko01WLt3QEIH60I1QI0lcjZlc5EMHZsBcUY&sig=AHIEtbT
learn about the history of
-YgouRbU2olg5Iq6lbkuT84PJOw
finance and advertising.
a. Students complete “Reality Check” Activity to
get a sense for budgeting (also reinforces the
need to student financial literacy): http://www.jumpstart.org/reality-checkpage1.html
3. Explain to students what this service learning unit entails:
a. Learn how to be savvy consumers
b. Learn why this matters to teens now and for the future
c. Choose a project to educate others on something that your group deems important
4. Introduce the concept of being a Critical Consumer/Savvy Consumer (possible ideas for subunits/areas of focus):
a. Students complete a Pre-Test to see where they are in terms of their consumer
awareness: http://www.oag.state.md.us/Consumer/consumerquiz.pdf
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
7/18/2012
Deal or No Deal? Becoming a Savvy Consumer
4
Or http://www.jumpstart.org/survey.html
b. Learn about pricing: sales, discounts and unit pricing
c. Learn about advertising: How it can be misleading, what to look for
d. Learn about statistics: How they can be used to present information in different ways
e. Learn about credit
i. “Understanding Credit Cards”
http://www.afsaef.org/pdf/ACF8FB
D.pdf
ii. “Understanding Vehicle Financing”
http://www.afsaef.org/pdf/AFSA07
_A_mauve-brown02_271.pdf
iii. “Mortgage Loans: Understanding the
Terms of Your Loan Before You
Sign…”
http://www.afsaef.org/pdf/mortbro
ch1.pdf
iv. “Good Credit, Bad Credit”
http://www.ecb.org/finance/E912VanCamp.html
5. Review topics learned with students and tie in underlying themes (this should also happen
throughout the unit). Reflections could include use of music, collages, group discussion,
journaling, etc.
6. Students select their groups and plan their advocacy project. Possible elements could
include:
a. Let others in on “the secret” – groups will decide on an issue that they want to educate
others about
b. Target-groups may include: their family, the student body, school sub-group,
community, etc
c. Survey student body on certain issues – students formulate survey and analyze data,
then present to an audience to clear up myths and common misconceptions
d. A simple habit teens can change, how much money it adds up to, and what they could
spend the money on instead
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
7/18/2012
Deal or No Deal? Becoming a Savvy Consumer
5
RESOURCES
DEAL OR NO DEAL? BECOMING A SAVVY CONSUMER
ADDITIONAL WEBSITES/RESOURCES









Maryland Public Schools Financial Literacy Requirement (includes Standards for grades 3-12):
http://msde.state.md.us/fle/
Handout on MSDE Financial Literacy:
http://msde.state.md.us/fle/docs/MD_Class_Financial_Literacy_2012.pdf
Family Economics and Financial Education: http://fefe.arizona.edu/
Existing HCPSS Partnerships: PNC Bank
America Saves: http://www.americasaves.org/
Jump $tart: http://www.jumpstart.org/
Junior Achievement: http://ja.org/
“Critical Consumer Education: Empowering the Low-Literate Consumer” article by Adkins and
Ozanne
http://www.marketing.pamplin.vt.edu/facultyFolder/julieOzanne/01socialwebsite/professional/res
earchpapers/2005_JMM_adkins.pdf
Using math in everyday life: http://www.learner.org/interactives/dailymath/index.html
POTENTIAL COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
 Junior Achievement of Central Maryland
 Local financial advisors
 Local branches of banks
 Local consumer advocate
MSDE SERVICE LEARNING SITE:
http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/programs/servicelearning/
TOOLS:
http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/programs/servicelearning/training_tools.htm
EVALUATION:
http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/programs/servicelearning/docs/best_practices.ht
m
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
7/18/2012
Deal or No Deal? Becoming a Savvy Consumer
6