7th graders play the Stock Market
September 30, 2025
The 7th-grade Social Studies students are investing in the stock market in a way. They each have invested $1000.00 in two stocks they picked. They researched the stocks by checking their performance for the last year and made their decisions based on that research. They will continue to check these stocks periodically throughout the year and evaluate their choices. After two months, they will have the opportunity to sell poorly-performing stocks and use that capital to buy something different. The goal is to maximize profits by the end of the school year.
The students understand that real investing occurs over a much longer time frame, usually involving decades. However, due to the restrictions of the school year, they will have to make do with a relatively short investment period of about nine months. As a class, they check the performance of their stocks every two weeks. Since they made their initial investments at the end of August, their first opportunity to make significant changes will be the end of October.
This experience will demonstrate to the students the nature of investing, the concept of risk/reward, and the importance of researching any investment they might make. These lessons will carry over into their adult lives and hopefully prepare them to invest in the real world at some point in the future.
