2017 OUTSTANDING ECONOMIC EDUCATOR
Jackie Herrmann, Deep Run High School, Henrico County
A high school CTE teacher, Herrmann fully utilizes the opportunity to infuse economic and financial concepts in all classes, and promotes their application in real world situations. One of a small number of Virginia teachers who has earned a Masters in Economic Education, she shares her knowledge and creative ways for teaching students these important concepts with pre-service and current teachers. At VCU, she teaches an economics class designed specifically for students who plan to become teachers. She is also a guest presenter at professional development programs provided by the VCU Center for Economic Education for K-12 teachers.

K-12 LESSON OR UNIT
FIRST PLACE
Anthony Nobles, Plaza Middle School, City of Virginia Beach
Crash: Surviving on Econ Island
Based loosely on the TV show “Lost,” students apply economics in a 2-part performance assessment. Following a creative writing exercise using economic vocabulary, students are asked to propose an economic system for their island. Their proposal must include a rationale for why their system of economy would be best, detail how it would be implemented, and how it would affect each of the major characters in their story.
Click here for the lessons and performance assessments.

SECOND PLACE
Emily Hartman, South River Elementary School, Rockingham County
Breakfast Cart
4th and 5th grade Special Education classes created a breakfast cart business. Students prepared items to be sold weekly, pricing and advertising them, taking in the money and giving change and counting the profit.  To help them understand the big picture of their efforts they completed several lessons on goods and services and producers and consumers. In addition to making some economic concepts “real,” the Breakfast Cart provided a real world example of why learning how to count money and interact socially is so important.
Click here for more on this project.

THIRD PLACE
Nora S. Fletcher, J. Frank Hillyard Middle School, Rockingham County
Poverty in America: Addressing disparities through action
Students in a Multiculturalism Interdisciplinary class explored poverty in their area using a hands on approach. After investigating trends in poverty and reasons people become impoverished, students developed an action research project which included a school wide food drive.
Click here for a copy of this unit.

VCEE INSTITUTE GRADUATE WINNER
Chrisitine Pedersen, New Kent High School, New Kent County
The Trouble with Chocolate Bunnies: Introduction to insurance
Before learning about the many different types of insurance, students learn the fundamental concept of how insurance works and what it does through a video and brief simulation.
Click here for the lesson, power point and homework assignment.

MINI-GRANTS
FIRST PLACE AWARD
Zakia Rafiqa Shabazz, George Mason Elementary School, City of Richmond
Money: Earning it, saving it, spending it
First grade students learned about money and its uses through several activities.  These included a classroom store where students practiced making purchases and a visit from a ventriloquist who shared his story about how he saved money.  Students also took a field trip to a credit union where they each received a jar with some coins and wrote about their saving goal.

SECOND PLACE AWARD
Stephen Giese, Colvin Run Elementary School, Fairfax County
A variety of books with economics connections supported several 5th grade classroom projects.  Reading The History of Money: From Bartering to Baking aloud as a class allowed for rich discussions about banks, debt, borrowing, loans, inflation, credit, fraud and currency. A second project, Medieval Day Market used “medieval money.” Students went to great lengths to create their wares, set their prices, promote their products and sell as much as possible.  As one student wrote, “I will price it high enough so that I receive enough income but low enough that people will buy it.” A third project was the Vacation Budget Project where each student had a fictional $10,000 to plan a budget for a family vacation for four people.