Jr. Duel Competition
To stimulate awareness of personal finance issues, provide knowledge and encourage the use of practical financial skills for students through classroom lessons and case study competition Jr. Duel in the Desert personal finance case study competition in which 400 middle school and high school students from Tucson Area Schools learn about personal finance and compete on March 28, 2009 on The University of Arizona campus. We partner with middle and high school educators that may already cover some personal finance components in their lesson plans. Additionally, we have partnered with parent volunteers that lead an after school program. Although some educators and parents will take the lead with teaching the weekly hour-long lessons for a minimum of 10 weeks, we extend the option to help coordinate guest speakers pending availability. Typically, most facilitators (i.e. parent volunteers, teachers, and guest speakers) will use the Family Economics and Financial Education (FEFE) curriculum because it is well crafted with activity based learning centered around the family, lesson are taught by teachers for teachers, and the national award-winning program is housed locally as part of our Take Charge America Institute.
The unique element to this 10-week classroom experience is a personal finance case study competition in which students apply what they have learned about personal finance and compete on our university campus. The competition revolves around the analysis of a personal finance case study, in which the participants will have a two-week time period to develop a solution for the case using the skills they have learned through their personal finance classes. A final 11th presentation is facilitated by our collegiate peer education program referred to as Credit-Wise Cats in which college students will talk to the teams about how to deliver a professional presentation to a panel of judges, including professional attire, review the competition rules and case. Students are charged with researching facts and supporting evidence to create short and long-range solutions for a fictitious family in extreme financial distress which tends to contain examples that students may identify in their own personal experiences. Teams analyze the case and put their solutions into a multimedia presentation, which will then be evaluated by a panel of judges.
