PwC US and RAFT Working to Engage Students in Financial Literacy Education
San Jose, CA (PRWEB) March 11, 2015 -- RAFT has launched two new project-based activities with the help of PwC’s Silicon Valley office to educate students about important financial literacy topics. These activities are now part of the PwC Earn Your Future commitment, which aims to help students develop critical financial literacy skills and provide educators with the resources and training to help students succeed.
A Capital One survey reports that 46 percent of teens do not know how to create a budget, and nearly 50 percent of teens are unsure of how to use a credit card effectively. Additionally, according to the FDIC, 80 percent of teachers do not feel competent to teach personal finance topics. By augmenting the existing Earn Your Future curriculum with engaging hands-on activities, PwC seeks to address both of these drastic shortcomings in today’s financial literacy education.
“PwC is helping to close the gap by working with select organizations such as RAFT and leveraging our people to increase financial capability,” said Jim French, PwC Partner and Corporate Social Responsibility Leader for the Silicon Valley office. “We believe that finding new and innovative ways to teach financial topics is essential to increasing the financial literacy of our youth. By investing in a future workforce that is fiscally, environmentally, and socially aware, we aim to prepare youth as they transition from school to career.”
A leader in creating learning experiences that help students grasp difficult topics in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), RAFT creates “Activity Kits” that leverage commonly found materials to provide educators and parents with engaging tools to help their students gain confidence in challenging subjects.
RAFT developed two new activities which drew from the PwC Earn Your Future initiative topics: Interesting Interest and Checkbook Window Shopping. These activities are geared toward middle-school students and provide an engaging way to learn about compound interest, checking accounts, and savings accounts. Interesting Interest models how money deposited into a savings account earns interest over time and allows students to test the effect of different interest rates. Checkbook Window Shopping enables students to budget, write checks, and keep track of their financial balances. Both activities provide educators with complete instructions, worksheets, and thought-provoking questions to enable effective teaching. A third activity is currently under development.
Each activity is documented in a free RAFT Idea Sheet that educators and parents can use as an instruction guide, with a complete list of the simple, commonly found materials needed. Both are also available for purchase as ready-to-go kits at RAFT’s online store, http://www.raftstore.net.
About Resource Area For Teaching
RAFT believes the best way to spark the love of learning for the next generation of thinkers, innovators, problem-solvers, and creators is through hands-on learning. A nonprofit organization since 1994, RAFT serves 12,000 educators each year who teach over 900,000 students. Find out more about RAFT and how to get involved at http://www.raft.net.
About PwC US
PwC US helps organizations and individuals create the value they're looking for. We're a member of the PwC network of firms, which has firms in 157 countries with more than 195,000 people. We're committed to delivering quality in assurance, tax and advisory services. Find out more and tell us what matters to you by visiting us at http://www.pwc.com/US.
© 2015 PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, a Delaware limited liability partnership. All rights reserved. PwC refers to the US member firm, and may sometimes refer to the PwC network. Each member firm is a separate legal entity. Please see http://www.pwc.com/structure for further details.
This content is for general information purposes only, and should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional advisors.
Michelle Berg, RAFT (Resource Area For Teaching), http://www.raft.net, +1 (408) 213-7208, [email protected]
Share this article