SEE IT
Sage Entrepreneurship Education,
Investing in Tomorrow
Service Learning 2013-2014
Independent Project Proposal
1.
Who are the students participating in this project?
Conner Thomas, Jon Skolnik, Randy
Wang, Bobby Cohen, Edward Goul, James Kappos, and Rafe Feffer.
2.
What is your area of interest, and why?
Entrepreneurship, finance, and
business. These topics are dramatically overlooked in public schools and
contributes to our country’s citizens’ growing debt and disproportionate
spending habits. We believe that if we
can instill basic, fundamental concepts of ideas like saving, spending, and
entrepreneurship in the minds of the children we instruct, we can have an early
and vital impact on these childrens’ financial futures that will continue to
serve them over the course of their lives.
3.
Who are the potential partner organizations you may utilize
throughout this project?
We would like to continue to foster a
strong relationship with our established partner schools, as we already have a
working relationship with them, and they represent the demographic we are
aiming to serve.
Throughout this year, though, we have
worked exclusively with El Sol Academy.
4.
What is the specific community need(s) that will be
addressed? Why do they need to be addressed?
The community we hope to impact is
especially affected by a lack of education in financial concepts that would
allow them to stay free of debt and the minimum wage trap. Early understanding of
basic ideas like saving, for instance, could quite literally change the
direction of their lives.
5.
What are possible activities/opportunities you may execute
within the scope of this project?
We have developed a curriculum for the
students that incorporates different elements and activities--all aimed at
teaching the concepts of business. If just one of these students decides to
open a small business as opposed to falling victim to poor financial habits we
would consider our mission a success.
6.
What do you hope to have accomplished by March?
We hope to have instilled in our
students not only a fundamental understanding of finance and entrepreneurship,
but also an interest in the field. We want to teach them that helping their
community and making money are not mutually exclusive, but rather, go hand in
hand, as entrepreneurs are often ones that contribute the most to their communities
and raise the standard of living. We know that the communities we will educate
have brilliant minds that are only lacking the opportunity to succeed. We want
to give them a broader awareness of the world and its opportunities.
In March, we made another trip to El
Sol and presented our latest material. Our activities built upon concepts
taught during previous visits. Our last trip was surely our most organized and
informative, and the feedback forms, provided by the students we taught,
reflected that well.
7.
How will you plan to achieve your goals? (Be as specific as
possible)
• October
30: (this needs to be fairly specific): Reconvene and discuss our general goals
and philosophies with this year. Discuss how this will function in relation to our
investment committee component, SLIC.
• November
20: Start
working on the curriculum that we will be using to teach the students at El Sol
for site visit #1 and #2. Finish curriculum for site day #1.
• December 11: Finish
curriculum for site visit #2 and #3.
• January
15: Site visit #1
• February
5: Site visit #2
• March
5: Site visit #3. Prepare for presentations as well. This is to occur
throughout the month as well as on this particular day.
• April
16 (Last SL day, presentations): Present our curriculum, site visits etc.
8.
How will you measure success?
We will measure our success by
our students' interest in and reception of the topics. We hope to teach our
students financial fundamentals that they can use in alignment with the pursuit
of their own passions. With the grasp of a few basic concepts, they could
ideally save enough money to succeed in their own business endeavors.
9.
Create a blog to report on your progress. What is the address?
http://www.slicshs.blogspot.com