Center for Economic Education

About Us

What Does the Center Do?

The Center for Economic Education’s primary focus is teacher training. The teacher is, above all, the single most important asset in any educational program. The Center engages in many activities to support the teaching of economics by:

Trailside Elementary School

	Offering teacher-training activities for teachers to increase their knowledge of basic economic concepts and to familiarize them with methods, strategies, and resource materials to teach economics.
	Serving as consultants to schools, educational agencies, and community groups for needs assessments, curriculum development, course content, resource materials, and teaching strategies.
	Developing curriculum materials to assist teachers in making economics relevant to the needs of their students.

To bring economics into the classroom, the Center:

	Sponsors courses in economics for teachers. Each year, in conjunction with the University of Alaska Anchorage, the Center provides professional development courses in economics and appropriate teachine techniques to over 300 teachers throughout Alaska.
	Produces and distributes economic education curriculum materials to Alaska schools. The Center’s classroom materials include an economic comic book, Adventures in the Alaska Economy, used by thousands of Alaska students each year.
	Provides schools with exciting, high quality economic education programs for all grade levels, including "Mini-Society", "Adventures in the Alaska Economy", "Teaching with Experimental Economics", and "The Stock Market Game".
	Sponsors an annual "Meaningful Economics Challenge" for fifth and sixth graders. This challenge is an economics version of a spelling bee but instead of spelling, teams of students answer economic questions, solve economic problems, design products, and develop marketing plans for their products. Over the past ten years more than 3,000 Alaska students have participated in the challenge.
	Sponsors the Stock Market Game, an online simulation game that allows students in upper elementary through high school to "trade" on the New York and American Stock Exchanges using imaginary funds in competition with teams from other schools.
	Recognizes outstanding economics teachers through its annual "Excellence in Teaching Economics" awards program. In the past 17 years, this program has recognized more than 100 teachers, with awards totaling over $50,000.
	Works with teachers and administrators throughout the state to implement and improve economic education by developing local standards in economic education and planning and sponsoring professional development opportunities for teachers.