A World Trade Simulation for High School Students

From: Amy.Ferraz@sf.frb.org

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
101 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94105


Dear Colleague,

On behalf of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSF), I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the International Economic Summit (IES) program. The IES is a world trade simulation for high school students that teaches fundamental economic concepts within the context of international trade. The program challenges high school students to think critically about the costs and benefits of trade while exploring the concept of globalization.

The IES program is a standards-based instructional unit that includes 13 individual lesson plans. The program is flexible in terms of classroom implementation, flowing into an existing course of study or as a stand-alone unit. By utilizing an experience-basedlearning model, it provides students with a solid foundation in economic fundamentals and incorporates a method for active-learning that is fun as well as challenging.

Over the course of the curriculum, students form teams, adopt a country, and take on the role of Economic Advisor. Each team conducts extensive research on “their” country in order to generate a strategic plan to improve living standards. The culminating activity is a six-hour, real time global trade simulation where student teams implement their strategic improvement plans in the simulated global marketplace.

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco recently acquired the non-exclusive rights to deliver the IES program throughout a nine western state region. As a result the FRBSF provides, at no charge,the following materials and services to teachers and their schools:

● IES Teacher Training
● Mini Summit Kit for running a classroom simulation
● Teacher Handbooks that include lesson plans and curriculum information
● Mini Summit and Regional Event implementation support
● Classroom set of student workbooks called Players’ Guides
● An interactive website with curriculum materials and information

As you can see, the program has a great deal to offer both teachers and students, and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco is excited to introduce the IES throughout the 12th District. You may also be interested in this story that aired on a local ABC affiliate after a Regional Summit Event we hosted recently in San Francisco: http://www.frbsf.org/education/teachers/ies/events.cfm

We would like to invite teachers to our upcoming professional development training on November 3-4, 2008 to learn more about implementing this exciting program. I have attached an informational brochure as well our registration form with our 2008-2009 schedule.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions.

Best regards,

Amy Ferraz
_______________________________________________

Amy Ferraz
Economic Education Analyst
District Public Information
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
101 Market Street, Mail Stop 640
San Francisco, CA 94105
(ph) 415.974.2853 * (cell) 415.850.1104 * (fax) 415.977.4180
amy.ferraz@sf.frb.org

www.frbsf.org/education
www.FederalReserveEducation.org

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