Maths activity: Stock Exchange! (Three lessons)

This maths activity has been used by my class at the end of exams - and it has been one of the most interesting and engaging maths projects I've ever been involved with. There are three years of trading, with each year taking about an hour of class time, or one lesson.

The class is split into teams of three and is given a share in each of eight fictional companies in a city called Sick City.

They then have trading windows where they can exchange their shares for those of other teams, predicting who will do well. Each quarter, dividends are paid in the form of $100 bills to the best performing companies. Some perform better in summer, others in winter, others all year round.

At the end of the lesson (which spans a year on the stock exchange!), the team with the most dividends are the winners.

It's a simple game if you follow the Powerpoint. Alternatively, copies of the reports and dividends are printed on PDFs so you can print them out and hand them to the team in envelopes if you fancy doing it slightly differently.

So how will this help your children? Well, it touches on some quite complex but worthwhile mathematical concepts in a real life game. Skills include:
------Forecasting
------Estimating
------Analysing risks
------Probability
------Comprehending information to make informed choices

With three years worth of material, this will keep your children busy for several lessons.