When I teach, whether it is reading, writing, and spelling to dyslexics or about the stock market and how to determine quality stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, my goal always is to make a positive difference in the individual’s life through his or her increased skills and knowledge. Teachers often receive little fed back after the fact. The following excerpt is from an email that made my day yesterday:
“Greetings Nancy, I am one of your former stock market class students (2x actually) and am still proud to this day that my partner and I in your class won the stock market game one year in the adult division. What I really want to tell you is my daughter’s personal finance class (high school), her group also won their class stock market game. Just want you to know, your teachings are being passed on down to the next generation!”
This fall semester Ms. Heather Pelletier at Palmer Middle School has used the Stock Market Game with the students in her 6th, 7th, and 8th grade computer science classes—4 classes and 26 teams.
As students work to increase their typing speed to 30 words per minute, they learn about word processing, making spreadsheets, using graphics, and conducting internet research. Students put these skills to use as they become acquainted with stocks and the stock market. They research companies, track company sales and earnings growth rates, and plot share price changes while they build a diversified portfolio of at least 5 investments using their virtual $100,000. They then monitor their portfolio’s performance, build a watch list, and make any needed changes. Like all endeavors, some students have been more successful than others; they have outperformed the S&P 500 Index by 23 percent and underperformed it by 17 percent. But everyone has increased their knowledge of how the economy and the stock market work.
Palmer Middle School, located in Palmer, Alaska, is part of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District; Palmer Middle School has 37 teachers working with approximately 670 students in grades 6 through 8.
The Mat-Su School District covers nearly 25,000 square miles (an area larger than West Virginia), administers 44 schools ranging in enrollment from 12 to 1,200 students, and serves a total 17,000 students.
Palmer, a town of 5,343 residents, is 42 miles northeast of Anchorage in the Matanuska Valley. Palmer and the Mat Valley have a distinct history. The following is excerpted from Turkey Red’s Complimentary Collector’s Menu; Turkey Red is one of my favorite good-food restaurants.
“The Matanuska Valley has a long and varied history. Its first inhabitants were the Dena’ina, a group of Athabaskan Indians. Their rich culture and oral tradition were based on their relationship with the land. Also good businessmen, they established a trading network with other Athabaskan groups in South Central Alaska—even trading with the Tlingets of the Panhandle. Furs, fish, copper, and roots were traded.
The placement of a railroad spur to the coal fields at Chickaloon opened up the fertile land on the east side of the valley. Within one year—1915—all land available for homesteading was staked. World War I, rugged conditions and a limited market caused many farms to be abandoned. The Alaska Railroad sent M.D. Snodgrass Stateside to encourage families to settle in the Valley; many did come and establish good farms, but the Depression halted the program.
In 1935, when the government started its program, two hundred and three families were selected from Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. One family was from Oklahoma. The families from Minnesota were transported to Alaska on the St. Mihiel, a World War I U.S. Army troop transport ship. Later the Wisconsin and Michigan families were sailed north. Of all the families, chicken pox infected 6 of them, requiring quarantine. These families were transported on the North Star, along with the colony animals, materials and equipment. The bell from the St Mihiel now hangs in the bell tower located near the Colonist Monument.
It was assumed the majority of these people would be familiar with farming in very cold regions. Arriving in May 1935, the Colonists drew for tracts of land, chose a home plan, and began to settle the area. They were required to sign a thirty-year note for the land, house, and other items. Transient workers built the community center and homes while the Colonists lived in tents. As winter approached, Colonists were allowed to help in the construction of their homes so that everyone would be housed by freeze-up. The structures they build can be seen, in part, in Colony Village.
The Colony opened up the Matanuska Valley, established Palmer and created huge amounts of publicity for Alaska. When war broke out in 1941, the colonists’ fields provided food for the soldiers at the Air Force Base and Fort Richardson. At last, those families who did stay—40% of the original 203 families—were able to make a new start.
Today, Palmer is a small established city. Knik and Matanuska are towns in memories and photographs. Dena’ina families with Russian names still live in the Valley. A few of the original settlers from the early part of the century continue to call the area home as do their descendants. Many of the original colonists and their children live here—some still on their original farms. Together with new families, they are participants in the future of the Valley, and therefore, its new history.”
Today, Palmer offers golfing, fishing, hiking, glacier trekking, white-water rafting, and ATV and horseback riding in the summer and in the winter ice skating, snow-shoeing, dogsled mushing, cross country skiing, and snow machining at Hatcher Pass and the surrounding area. At any time of the year one can simply go sight-seeing to enjoy and photograph the roadside attractions, such as Hatcher Pass, Pioneer Peak, Knik Glacier, Matanuska Peak, and the Matanuska Glacier.
The first fair was held on the school grounds in 1936 from September 4th to the 7th. This coincided with the opening of the Knik River Bridge that linked Anchorage and Palmer by road for the first time. Previously, the train had been the only transportation link. The Alaska State Fair continues to grow in popularity; this year approximately 300,000 people attended the 10-day event and viewed the 8,000 exhibits and checked out and purchased the goods and services of 500 vendors.
The Alaska State Fair, the Mat-Su Valley, the Stock Market Game, and publicly traded companies—Coke, John Deere, Ford, Apple, Intel—are more closely related than it might seem. I have sipped a Coke as I strolled through the Fair exhibits; I have seen a farmer standing in his field using an iPhone to check the market or to talk to his customers—Safeway and Kroger—about his current supply of carrots, lettuce, turnips, broccoli, and cabbages. And the students in Ms. Pelletier’s computer classes have researched and purchased shares of Coke, Apple, and Intel for their Stock Market Game portfolios. They are learning about the interconnectedness of the Palmer area, the economy, and the stock market.
While doing the research for my blog post, Eielson: The Stock Market Game in Alaska, I discovered Eielson’s 18th Aggressor Squadron. Its pilots and F16s are awesome; they are among the finest combat pilots in the U.S. Air Force. Eielson AFB conducts RED FLAG-Alaska, a 10-day, aerial combat training exercise held three times a year. The 18th Aggressor Squadron provides the threat (the enemy) for the combat pilots. The following 5-part video is amazing and sobering for those of us who are far removed from the realities of “engagement.” Each video is about 10 minutes and worth watching on many different levels.
Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag
Part 1. The fighter pilot is off to his first Operation Red Flag. RED FLAG is an advanced aerial combat training exercise. This series takes place at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada rather than at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.
Part 2.Operation Red Flag embodies the precision, complexity, and chaos of a real battle situation.
Part 3: In advanced aerial combat training, the hunter can become the hunted. It is also about hitting ground targets, air refueling, and air craft maintenance.
Part 4: Each RED FLAG exercise strives to exceed combat conditions for the ground crew, ground forces, and pilots. All components are there including the rescue of a downed pilot in enemy territory.
Part 5: On the final day of a RED FLAG exercise they use live ordnance. Everything is for real. This requires true life and death team building. RED FLAG is about training and saving lives. The parting words: “Being a fighter pilot is the best job on earth” and “Going to war is worse than anything you can possibly imagine.”
The national office of the Stock Market Game program has compiled a list of the top performing stocks for the fall 2010 semester. These winning stocks were chosen by student portfolio managers in the states with the largest number of SMG teams (easiest way to compile the list). The following is the SMG list of the top five stocks with its brief description of each company:
Motricity, Inc.: This company enables wireless carriers such as Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile to offer the Web on the go. At the center of the company’s data services is the mCore Platform, allowing wireless subscribers to download ringtones, videos, wallpapers, and games. Congrats to the SMG students who uncovered its potential!
2. ZAGG Incorporated ZAGG 3.62 7.19 99%
ZAGG Incorporated: Your tech savy students may be very familiar with this company as it designs, manufactures, and distributes protective clear coverings and accessories for consumer electronic and hand-held devices worldwide.
3. Arctic Cat Inc. ACAT 8.11 14.88 83%
Arctic Cat Inc.: This Minnesotabased company manufactures and markets about 20 types of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) and over 50 snowmobile models. Think snow!
4. Exide Technologies XIDE 4.47 7.97 78%
Exide Technologies: A maker and recycler of automotive and industrial batteries for retailers and transportation manufacturers including Wal-Mart, NAPA, as well as Fiat and Toyota.
5. National Oilwell Varco Inc. NOV 39.55 60.65 54%
National Oilwell Varco Inc.: A worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and sale of equipment and components used in oil and gas drilling and production.
Mrs. Sharon Ashlock the Business Education Teacher at Ben Eielson Jr./Sr. High School is using the Stock Market Game (SMG) program with her 8th grade Reach students and her 10th grade Study Skills students. Two of Mrs. Ashlock’s eight teams are in 2nd and 3rd place in the Middle School Division and another team is in 2nd place in the High School Division; these teams are also in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place overall in Alaska. Congratulations to these students for their astute portfolio management. They have invested their virtual $100,000 in companies ranging from Netflex, Google, and Apple to Coke and McDonald’s. The top Eielson team, Team ZZ31, has outperformed the S&P 500 Index by 15.8 percent. Who says individual investors can’t outperform the S&P 500. This team currently owns 9 stocks and has sold 5 stocks to cut its losses. Semester after semester the top teams are those that sell stocks when they are down 5 to 6 percent and reinvest the proceeds. Success is more about cutting losses and owning a diversified portfolio than about picking the one big winning stock. Each SMG team in Alaska must own at least 5 investments during the semester, and no investment may equal more than 30 percent of the value of the portfolio at the time of purchase.
Ben Eielson Jr./Sr. High School’s 553 students attend the only combined jr./sr. high school in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District. The students declare that even though they are the smallest high school in the district they are mighty; their school motto is “Small but Mighty and Proud.” Furthermore, they are part of the proud and mighty Eielson Air Force Base located 28 miles southeast of Fairbanks.
Eielson was created as part of Ladd Field (now Ft. Wainwright). Originally (1939), Ladd was the premier site in the United States for cold-weather testing of aircraft and equipment, but World War II changed that mission. Ladd Fieldbecame the strategic hub for fighters and bombers involved in the Thousand-Mile War against the Japanese in the Aleutian Islandsand a strategic stopover for airplanes flying the Northern Route carrying Lend-Lease materiel to Europe. Because of the increased traffic and weather conditions, Ladd determined it needed an alternative landing strip. Thus, Eielson Air Force Base began operation in 1943 as Mile 26 Satellite Field.
Under the Lend-Lease Act from 1941 to 1945, the United States supplied France, China, the UK, and the Soviet Union with vast amounts of war materials. The Northern Route was used to ferry aircraft and supplies to Russia. U.S military pilots flew the planes from Great Falls,
Montana, to Ladd Field where Soviet pilots took over and flew the aircraft to Nome, Alaska, and on to Siberia. Brutal cold winter temperatures of minus 50 degrees, remote wilderness, and severe weather made these flights extremely hazardous and all too often deadly. By the end of the war 7,926 aircraft had traveled through Ladd and over the pole.
After the close of the war when military bases were being reorganized, Mile 26 Satellite Field was redesignated Eielson Air Force Base—January 1948. It was named in honor of Carl Ben Eielson a 1920’s pioneer in Interior Alaska aviation. In 1928 Ben Eielson and Australian explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins made the first flight over the polar ice cap. They flew a 2,200-mile non-stop route from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Spitzbergen, Greenland. Their flight was interrupted by an emergency landing due to severe weather; after waiting out the storm huddled in their plane for five days, they successfully took off on the third attempt and completed the flight’s last 100 miles. Eielson received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the 1928 Harmon Trophy for that aviation feat. Eielson was killed in 1929 when he crashed in a storm about 400 miles northwest of Nome while trying to rescue passengers from an icebound ship at North Cape, Siberia.
From the 1943 to the present, Eielson Air Force Base has participated in Alaska and U.S military operations as the Army Air Forces Transport Command (June 1943 to November 1945), the Eleventh Air Force (November to December 1945), the Alaska Air Command (December 1945 to August 1990), and thePacific Air Forces (August 1990 to the present). Today, Eielson’s host unit, the 354th Fighter Wing (FW), provides RED FLAG-Alaska field training exercises for U.S. Forces. It uses Alaska’s more than 60,000 square miles of uninterrupted military training airspace—by far the largest supersonic training area in the nation. These 10-day air combat training exercises held three times a year are a realistic, multi-service, sometimes multi-national (Germany, Sweden, Canada, United Kingdom, India, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Mongolia, Singapore) exercise in threat training. Eielson’s 18th Aggressor Squadron provides the threat. They are Pacific Air Forces’ only dedicated adversary squadron. It is their job to learn the flying styles and capabilities of enemy air forces and prepare and train U.S. combat pilots to outperform those adversaries. RED FLAG gives pilots and crews a realistic taste of combat, often their first, which significantly increases their chances for survival in actual combat. What a task!
While the 354th Fighter Wing is providing combat-ready forces through training and ‘war games’, their sons and daughters in two of Mrs. Ashlock’s classes are participating in the Stock Market Game as not just a ‘Game’ but as an education for life. They are learning about adverse and positive political, economic, and market forces.
Welcome to the investors from Ms. DeMark’s Applied Math class who attend the high school at the Skagway City School. The Skagway school district consists of one K-12 school with an enrollment of 72 students of which 32 are high school students. Ms. DeMark is the math teacher for grades 8-12 and teaches all math classes from consumer math to calculus. She, like many other math teachers in Alaska and nationwide, uses the Stock Market Game program to enrich her math curriculum. SMG’s Math Behind the Market extends basic math skills, reinforces math knowledge, and provides test taking practice in a real-life type situation. In fact, Learning Point Associates conducted a rigorous, nationwide-randomized, controlled trial measuring the impact of the Stock Market Game and found that students who played the game scored significantly higher on mathematics tests than their peers who did not play the game. To view the full study click here. Teachers typically use the SMG once or twice a week to create a real world application for math. Ms. DeMark’s students are using math concepts, problem solving, and computation as they guide their investments that include stock in a Chinese seafood processor, a Japanese video game producer, a Canadian movie and TV production company, a biopharmaceutical company, and well-know companies such as GE, Johnson & Johnson, UPS, Dell, and Motorola.
Skagway is a coastal town in Southeast Alaska—the panhandle of Alaska. It is at the north end of
the Lynn Canal. The Lynn Canal is a natural inlet waterway that connects Skagway and Haines at the north end and Juneau at the south end to the rest of the Inside Passage and the west coast ports in the lower 48.
The Inside Passage and the Lynn Canal are a main route for shipping, cruise ships, and Alaska ferries. Because Skagway is the northern terminus of the Lynn Canal section of the Alaska Marine Highway and is a port of call for the Inside Passage cruise ships, its population of 875 plays host to nearly 900,000 tourists each summer.
Skagway is also on the road system—one of only three Southeast Alaskan communities (Haines and Hyder). Skagway residences can take the Klondike Highway to Whitehorse in Yukon Territory, Canada, where it joins the Alaska Highway, the ALCAN Highway. If they turn left at Whitehorse, they can drive to Tok and be back in Alaska, then go north to Fairbanks or south to Anchorage. If they turn right at Whitehorse, they can drive through the southern part of Yukon Territory, on through British Columbia, and into the lower 48 states.
The Skagway area was first inhabited by the Tlingit people. They hunted and fished and traded with other groups of people living along the coast and in the interior. Then during 1896 gold was discovered along the Klondike River near Dawson City in Canada’s Yukon Territory. Skagway became a terminus and staging area for gold miners making the 500 mile trek to the Klondike gold fields. In 1896 only a handful of people lived in Skagway. By 1898 the population had increased to 8,000, which made Skagway the largest city in Alaska. Lots of gold mining town history was lived and created in the three short years between 1897 and 1900. By 1900 the gold rush was nearly over and the Skagway economy had collapsed. Names and events such as Jack London, The Call of the Wild (Skagway is part of the setting), “Soapy” Smith, and the shootout on Juneau Wharf, have become part of our national historical lore. Today, tourists can visit the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park and ride the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad that hauled miner’s supplies as far as Whitehorse, and adventurous hikers can trek the 33 mile Chilkoot Trail which miners struggled up to reach the Yukon goldfields.
The trail is like running through a museum. The history here jumps at you. The trail follows a river for a few miles with considerable climbing & descending over glacial moraines, around chasms and outcroppings. At about 16 miles you obtain the pass by climbing 1500’ in about 3/8 mile. The route is all roots, bogs, rocks, tundra and more rocks of every size & description in your very worst nightmare! Chilkoot Pass itself makes Wasatch’s “Chinscrapper” seem easy. I crossed so many streams, snowfields and rock fields it all blends into a memory of this being the most difficult physical feat I have ever attempted in less than a day. There is one 4 mile section where backpackers are advised to allow 10 hours. (this section took me 4 hours). During my run as I passed backpackers, they were jealous of my light fanny pack and my ease of negotiating the difficult terrain unencumbered as they were with their heavy packs. Once over the pass & into B.C. the trail tends to be downhill but still with many climbs around & over “stuff.” Rocks, snowfields & wet conditions from the rain & glacial runoff combine to make the going pretty slow. Of course there is the required reading of historical signs & taking breaks to soak in the wonder around you. The temperatures were 35-60 deg. & everything that can fall from the sky including brilliant sunshine, did. The winds were light except at the summit at Chilkoot Pass. There’s about 7000’ of climbing & 3000’ of descent. I carried minimal survival gear & relied on 8 packets of GU energy gels & 3 Cliff bars. I treated my water from the streams with iodine.
Also, in modern-day Skagway
The students in Ms. DeMark’s Applied Math class can learn about current publically traded railroads, mining corporations, and hiking equipment companies while they live in Skagway, the historical staging town for the Yukon Territory gold rush of 112 years ago.
The high school in Unalakleet is one of the schools in Alaska and across the United States and several foreign countries that use the Stock Market Game (SMG) program in their classrooms to add a real-life online simulation activity to enhance basic curriculum. Mr. Ryan Woodruff is using the SMG with the 11 students in his economics class to help them more completely understand economic, business, market, and investing concepts. His students have invested in a diverse group of U.S. publicly traded companies from metals companies to a company that produces common household products. Currently, the Unalakleet SMG team portfolios are outperforming my portfolio.
Mr. Woodruff’s econ class is part of Unalakleet School which serves a total of 195 students in grades K through 12. The school’s students regularly participate in academic programs such as its Gifted and Talented program, the Academic Decathlon, and the Battle of the Books. As for sports, despite its small numbers, Unalakleet high school has won three 1A state basketball championships.
Unalakleet School is part of the Bering Strait School District. This school district serves approximately 75,000 roadless square miles and 1800 students living in fifteen villages from Shishmaref and Wales in the north on the Seward Peninsula to Stebbins and St. Machael in the south on the Norton Sound plus two villages on St. Lawrence Island and one village on Little Diomede Island (not shown on this map but directly west of the village of Wales and only 2.4 miles from the Russian island Big Diomede and approximately 23 miles from the Russian mainland).
Unalakleet, itself, is located on the Norton Sound at the mouth of the Unalakleet River (395 miles northwest of Anchorage). Use the following coordinates to locate it on your map: 63°52′44”N Latitude, 160°47′23”W Longitude. Since no roads lead to Unalakleet, it can be reached only by air ($450 from Anchorage) or by boat.
With its backdrop of trees, tundra, and hills, Unalakleet covers about 3 square miles and has approximately 750 residents. This area is well known for it salmon and king crab fisheries. It has a seafood processing plant that serves the Norton Sound area fisherman. In addition to the crab and salmon, residents rely heavily on caribou, ptarmigan, and oogruk for subsistance. The winters tend to be cold and dry with temperatures ranging from 11 to -4; summer temperatures typically range from 47 to 62. For the current weather click here.
Unalakleet’s main claim to fame may be that it is the first checkpoint on the Norton Sound in the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. The first musher who reaches Unalakleet—851 miles from the ceremonial start in Anchorage—receives the Gold Coast Award, a trophy and $2,500 in gold nuggets
Unalakleet is also a checkpoint on the Iron Dog snowmobile race that goes from Wasilla to Nome to Fairbanks.
Archaeologists have dated house remnants along the beach ridge from 200 B.C. to 300 A.D. The name Unalakleet means “place where the east wind blows.” Unalakleet has long been a major trade center as the terminus for the Kaltag Portage, an important winter travel route connecting to the Yukon River. Indians on the upper river were considered “professional” traders who had a monopoly on the Indian-Eskimo trade across the Kaltag Portage. The Russian-American Company built a post here in the 1830s. In 1898, reindeer herders from Lapland were brought to Unalakleet to establish sound herding practices. In 1901, the Army Signal Corps built over 605 miles of telegraph line from St. Michael to Unalakleet, over the Portage to Kaltag and Fort Gibbon.
And now their high school students are learning how today’s electronic financial markets work.
I’ve been home ten days and am ready for another vacation.
Last week I taught my 1-credit, 15-contact hour (a lot of lecture and guided activities) Mutual Fund class offered through the Alaska Council of Economic Education.
The Stock Market Game: Mutual Funds
Learn how to implement the Stock Market Game in your classroom—an innovative way to enhance and reinforce your core curriculum using a real-life simulation activity. Acquire valuable information about mutual funds. Learn about the types of mutual funds and their levels of risk and reward. Use specific guidelines for evaluating and choosing mutual funds as you explore interactive mutual fund websites and the Stock Market Game site with its comprehensive teacher Resource Center. Learn how relevant economic and financial market concepts such as supply and demand, economic cycles and the growth of foreign economies affect the market and the performance of mutual funds. Official UAA registration will occur at the first class meeting; the fee is $85. You will receive a $40rebate at the end of the semester if you actively use the Stock Market Game in your classroom with at least 3 student teams. Register for free student teams at www.StockMarketGame.org. Nancy King, Instructor
This week I’m teaching another 1-credit class; this time it’s about Bonds.
The Stock Market Game: Bonds and Portfolio Diversification
Learn how to implement the Stock Market Game—an innovative way to enhance and reinforce your core curriculum using a real-life simulation activity. Acquire valuable information about bonds, and find answers to your questions about bonds such as What is a bond? What are the various types of bonds? What are their risks? How does one choose a bond? How do economic cycles affect the price of bonds? Also, acquire basic information about diversifying your portfolio using stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Increase your understanding of economic cycles. Learn how to make money or avoid loosing it as the economy and the market go through their ups and downs. Official UAA registration will occur at the first class meeting; the fee is $85. You will receive a $40rebate at the end of the semester if you actively use the Stock Market Game in your classroom with at least 3 student teams. Register for free student teams at www.StockMarketGame.org. Nancy King, Instructor
I’m also back working with two of my three dyslexic educational therapy clients. I’ve just noticed that this adds up to a 50 hour work week—no wonder the mail is stacking up and the dust bunnies are growing. Next week I’ll will be back to normal—in other words, my stocks, bonds, and mutual fund teaching will be concluded until January. However, I will miss working directly those who are learning about investing and are excited about it and about sharing their knowledge with their students through the use of the Stock Market Game.
