Fall 2007 Projects
Risky Business
Risky Business has become a traditional project for SBU SIFE each year. SBU SIFE goes into Bolivar Middle School and other area middle schools to teach a class of sixth graders important lessons on free enterprise ranging from supply and demand to pricing and selling a product. Stimulating creativity and teaching enterprise principles, SIFE supplies the groups of students with materials to make the product they have design. Students make products ranging from stress balls to scented locker fresheners. The students are given the opportunity to produce and market their products. At the end of the week, the sixth graders are given the chance to sell their products to their entire school. SBU SIFE provides each group of students with a $20 loan with which to make and market their product. On selling day, the future entrepreneurs get to keep any profit they earn exceeding this loan. Risky Business is one of SBU SIFE’s most enjoyable and most successful projects.
Computer Training
SBU SIFE partners with the Bolivar High School FBLA to present computer skills workshops to members of the Bolivar community. The primary target market is seniors and middle-aged adults with little or no computer experience. Lessons taught range from learning the basic components of a computer to learning how to use word processing, the Internet, and e-mail.
Dollars and Sense
Addressing the need to teach ethical concepts, SBU SIFE tackled the responsibility by teaching Bolivar High School juniors and seniors about business ethics. The students were divided into companies and given four situations with two possible responses from which to choose. The students were then allowed time, as a team, to decide which response was ethically better than the other choice. Dependent upon which response they chose, companies would see the consequences of pursuing the right or wrong action. In making some of these decisions, students discovered that by choosing the ethical decision they sometimes ended up losing money. Making the ethical decision is not always the easiest thing to do but SBU SIFE hopes to encourage students to maintain a high level of ethics in the business world.
Destination Station
SBU SIFE partners with SBU Intercultural Studies students to work with second graders from Bolivar Primary School to teach them about the different world markets. Second graders will have the chance to visit booths from eight different countries, to trade currency, and to buy different products from the countries.
Enterprise City
Enterprise City is a project focusing on teaching sixth graders the opportunities of free enterprise in a unique setting. After three days of teaching key business concepts, SIFE will host the students at the Discovery Center in Springfield, Missouri and teach them how a city operates. While at the Discovery Center, the sixth grade students will have a chance to put the lessons taught into practice when they open checking accounts, pay bills, and spend their income as they own and operate Enterprise City.
Financial Planning
Realizing that college students could benefit from financial guidance, SBU SIFE holds two financial planning seminars each semester. Previous seminar topics include different forms of credit, shifting from a college student financial plan to a real world financial plan, taxes, and the stock market. Previous seminar speakers have included Mr. Troy Bethards, assistant professor of business administration at Southwest Baptist University, Mr. Jason Myers, investment advisor at Sterling Investments, and Mr. Tim Erickson, investment representative at Edward Jones.
Strut Your Stuff
SBU SIFE’s annual Strut Your Stuff competition involves students from ten area high schools. Each competing team will consist of three to four members which have been hired as marketing agents. Their assignment will be to create an advertising campaign for the company’s new product. After each group is equipped with product information, and a private room with one computer, each team will be given three hours to develop a marketing plan. Each team then gets the chance to present their plan to a board of judges for the chance to compete for prizes.