Employees at the local Athletic Store determining prices for new merchandise. Town reporters hustling to meet story deadlines for the daily newspaper. Friends on a shopping spree spending their hard-earned paychecks.
This is JA BizTown where each day, young students experience the responsibilities and opportunities of citizenship in a free enterprise system. JA BizTown, Junior Achievement's Elementary Capstone Program, helps young people discover, investigate and become productive citizens in a life-size replica of a real town. The students operate the stores, bank, radio station, restaurant, newspaper, realty office, TV station, and city hall-all outfitted with modern office equipment and business supplies. During the JA BizTown experience, students learn first-hand what it takes to create a business, run a newspaper, supervise employees and hold elected office, as well as personally earn and manage money.
Prior to their daylong JA BizTown experience, teachers and adult volunteers attend on-site training workshops, and students complete a four to six week interdisciplinary in-class curriculum. Then it is off to JA BizTown, where everyone participates in a hands-on simulation that illustrates the connection between hard work and tangible success. A visit to JA BizTown also teaches responsibility, leadership, decision-making and team building.
Through JA BizTown, teachers are given a new interdisciplinary approach to teaching social studies, math, language arts, government and economics. Parents are given a chance to experience economic education in new, exciting, and imaginative ways.
Middle Tennessee's Elementary Capstone Program opened in May 2002 with nine schools participating in a very successful pilot. Junior Achievement is currently accepting school applications and actively seeking funding for JA BizTown. For more information, please call:
Michelle Rozell, Director of JA BizTown, at 615-627-1204 or email at michelle@janash.com
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JA BizTown
