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Sarah Compton Wins WI Milken Award

 

Fifth-grade teacher Sarah Compton resumes her instruction after the excitement of her surprise Milken Educator Award notification. Compton challenges her students to think critically and dive deeply into their learning. In a series of project-based lessons on financial literacy, students explore concepts of spending, saving, sales tax, discounts and interest. Next, they learn about the stock market, including how to choose companies for investment based on data trends and current events. They track an imaginary $10,000 investment as a group, then move to a friendly competition as individual students try to grow their pretend portfolios. Along the way students practice computing with large numbers and decimals, calculating percentages, graphing and estimation. Engagement is sky-high, both because of the project’s real-world connection and because it offers students options along the way.