Spring 2005 winning students and their teacher, George Smith (second from right) from Mirta Ramirez Computer Science Charter School in Chicago. Students are being recognized at the May awards reception hosted by UBS. Assisting in the awards is Helen Roberts (far left), Associate Director for the Center at UIC; Robert Aguilar (third from left), Chief Investment Officer with Cabrera Capital Markets, Frank Moroni (middle), Senior Vice President Wealth Management USA and Al Thorstenson (far right), Senior Account Executive, Chicago Tribune News in Education.

The Stock Market Game™ program

The Fall 2005 Stock Market Game™ (SMG) program is available for classroom use through December. Teachers may register their student teams through Thursday, October 27. Teams may place trades through December 9, with winning teams being recognized with awards in January.

In Chicago, funding continues from sponsors Cabrera Capital Markets, UBS, and the Chicago Tribune, to enable Chicago and Archdiocese of Chicago schools to participate at no cost for student team fees. Three teacher workshops are being held this fall at the UIC Center for Economic Education for Chicago-area teachers: October 1, 4 and 15. Spring session registrants can attend a workshop on either January 28 or 30, or February 4. To register for one of these Chicago-area workshops, contact Jenny Nero at the UIC Center for Economic Education, at jnero1@uic.edu .

To register for the SMG, and for complete information on The SMG program and additional teacher workshops in Illinois, go to www.stockmarketgame.org; click "How to Register"; select Illinois.

April 29th wrapped up the spring 2005 SMG session, with winning teachers and their student teams being awarded their prizes during the month of May. An after-school awards reception was held at UBS for Chicago and Archdiocese winners.

To view the list of winning teams along with portfolio summaries of first place teams, go to:
www.econed-il.org/new.html and click on the Spring 2005 winners (or any session of interest.)

InvestWrite, an innovative extension of The Stock Market Game, resulted in an Illinois student winner again this spring.

Evanston Township High School senior Mark Hulse received 7th place in the high school competition during the spring session. Mark, and his teacher Dave Feeley, received gift cards for the outstanding effort. Mark was named a finalist among more than 7900 entrants in the third national InvestWrite stock market student essay contest. Thirty students nationwide, between grades 4-12, were recognized with awards ranging from trips to Disney World and laptop computers, to gift cards and pizza parties. Four Illinois students from two different schools, were awarded prizes during the fall 2004 InvestWrite competition. See the Spring 2004 issue of E-CONnections for those winning students' names and schools. Their essays can be found at the Econed web site cited above.

Teachers are eligible to submit student essays when their teams are participating in the SMG. In the InvestWrite essays, students apply the knowledge of math, language arts and business to actual saving and investment principles. Students analyze the investment potential of publicly traded companies and the long-term importance of saving and investing. InvestWrite builds a bridge between classroom learning and the real world. To learn more, visit http://www.investwrite.info .