Illinois Bankers Education Services Secures License for The Stock Market Game TM in Illinois

Illinois Bankers Education Services Secures License for The Stock Market Game TM in Illinois Great News! The Stock Market Game TM is back for the 2020-2021 school year!

Illinois Bankers Education Services (IBES), a subsidiary of the Illinois Bankers Association, is excited to be the new licensee of The Stock Market Game TM in the state of Illinois.

The SIFMA Foundation’s curriculum-based Stock Market Game features a high-tech, online investment simulation of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs and ESG investments to give students a better understanding of capital markets, global economic trends and fiscal policy.

The Stock Market Game TM explores the fundamentals of personal finance and investing, while practicing content and skills in math, English language arts, economics, social studies, and other subjects. Students build and manage an investment portfolio in a real-world, dynamic marketplace, analyze and make decisions, explore the consequences of their choices, and seek new ways to strategize for success.

Participants and instructors can expect the same friendly service from the same people they’ve come to know over the years as the licensing of the program moves from Econ Illinois to IBES. Northern Illinois University will remain the program administrator.

Founded in 1977 by academics at Buffalo State, The Stock Market Game TM has since expanded through a national network of educational nonprofit organizations to reach nearly 19 million students. An independent study by Learning Point Associates found that students who participated in The Stock Market Game TM scored significantly higher on mathematics and financial literacy tests than their peers who did not participate. They also found that teachers who taught The Stock Market Game TM reported that the program motivated them to better plan for their own financial futures. The Stock Market Game TM has been named the only program that successfully increased scores on the Jumpstart Coalition’s test of high school students’ financial literacy.

For more information, visit stockmarketgame. org. Illinois banks are encouraged to bring The Stock Market Game TM to their local school districts and partner with them to sponsor the program at no cost to the school. See more at ilbanker.com/ Education-Events/The-Stock-Market-Game.

To learn more, contact Debbie Kerman at dkerman@niu.edu.

What is The Stock Market Game?

• A media-blended project-based learning simulation in which student teams work collaboratively to invest a $100,000 virtual cash account in stocks, mutual funds and • bonds. A competition between grade 4-12 student teams by • region and grade level. A robust teacher resource center with lessons, activities and assessments, searchable by subject and grade level and aligned to Illinois and national Common Core Standards.

How it works…

With The Stock Market Game™ program, students learn core competencies, critical thinking skills and teamwork while engaging your students in real world applications. In building a portfolio, students research, evaluate and make decisions based upon their research. Teams trade equities; earn interest on cash balances; and pay commission on all trades. To better understand stock and overall market performance, they need to know how the economy works, and to calculate their returns they need to do math. Learning is a natural part of the experience.

How you can help… • Contact your local school to see if they participate and, if they do not, connect them with the SMG site to register • • • (stockmarketgame.org). Offer to sponsor your local school’s teams (just $10 per team). Volunteer to help be a mentor or facilitator. Volunteer to be a judge for the InvestWrite competition, a highly-successful extension of the SMG program designed to help students sharpen critical thinking skills as they compose essays on investment-related topics.

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