St. Olaf's 7th-graders Amani Alhamdani, Sky Amboy and Haven Walker's team placed second out of 462 teams in the Middle School/Junior High Division for the entire state of Utah in Utah's Stock Market Game competition. Their team placed 6th overall in the whole state, including all divisions of elementary, junior high and high school teams (a total of 1227 teams).
Led by St. Olaf Catholic School math and science teacher Mr. Rick Kelson, the St. Olaf Middle School students played The SIFMA Foundation's Stock Market Game, an instructional tool used to teach kids how to invest as well as get them engaged in financial literacy and math. It's a great way tool to get kids to apply their mathematical understanding to real-world situations.
For the game, each team is given $100,000 of fake money to invest in real time stocks over ten weeks in the fall. Over the ten weeks, their team made a profit of $12,000.00. In Utah, the top three money-making teams are honored at the awards banquet at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.