College Fund from Great Aunt Betty

Introduction: Your Great Aunt Betty died at the ripe old age of 100 years. She was a very smart and thrifty lady; as well as being very generous. Great Aunt Betty left you $1,000 to go towards your college fund. Now, you will be investing your new found money into a CD. Your parents encourage you to reinvest the college fund into the CD, until you are ready to start college. Your job will be to calculate the growth of your CD for seven years.

Prior Knowledge: The learners must be introduced to calculating interest.(Working with percents). They should be familiar with building tables with information.

Grade Level: 4-7

Task: The learner will become comfortable calculating percentages and learn about certificates of deposit.

Resources:

• Top FDIC-Insured Bank Rates
• Paper and pencil will be needed to build a table of earned interest.

Process:

1. The learners must access the Web and the URL that was given, and select a CD in which to invest.
2. The learners must calculate the amount of money earned from the interest (paid annually) in the term of the CD for the $1000 invested.
3. The learners must then calculate the interest earned for seven years.
4. The learners must show the findings on a table for seven years, and show the total earnings including the $1000

Learning Advice: The learners must be able to calculate percentages, and know how to organize a table of information.

Evaluation: The learners will be evaluated individually, by the answers to their calculations found on their tables.

Extensions:
The learners could show the earnings on a bar graph.

Calculate the difference if compound interest is paid monthly as opposed to annually.

Conclusion: The learners will be able to calculate interest and build a table of information.

Source: http://score.kings.k12.ca.us/lessons/collfund.htm

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