The first place team of South High students, Justin Yang, Blake Cassani and Robin George, were led by their AP Microeconomics teacher Elaine Marinakos.
Students from South High School in Downers Grove earned first place in the Northwest Suburban Fall 2017 session of The Stock Market Game program. South High competed against 696 teams across Illinois; one of the schools being neighboring North High who earned second place.
The first place team of South High students, Justin Yang, Blake Cassani and Robin George, were led by their AP Microeconomics teacher Elaine Marinakos.
The Stock Market Game is organized twice during the academic year, once in the fall and once in the winter/spring. Students are given a starting capital amount of $100,000 in the simulation, and are encouraged to buy and sell stocks and mutual funds based on researching market trends and news that may be aligned with the company and the industry.
“The point of the Stock Market Game is for students to understand the long-term benefits of investing,” Marikanos said. “Also, the game relates to AP economics because they have to do a lot of research into the stocks that they buy and then apply economic theory to their purchases.”
Marinakos brought in a stock market expert and father of a DGS student, David Rutter, to speak to her students. Rutter explained the basics of how the stock market works, and suggested strategies for students to use while managing their portfolios. The students used this advice and chose their holding companies, which included Calgon Carbon, Papa John’s, and Abercrombie & Fitch.
“We chose companies that we thought would be smart; it was exciting to watch them over time,” South High student Blake Cassani said. “One company went up 100 percent in one day, which was crazy to see.”
The Stock Market Game (SMG) is an online education program used in thousands of classrooms nationwide. It helps teach core subjects like math, social studies, technology, business, economics and language skills in a real-world setting while emphasizing the importance of long-term saving and investing. See www.stockmarketgame.org and www.econillinois.org for details about the program.