LifeSmarts to Kick-off 15th Competition Year

The National Consumers League’s 2008-2009 LifeSmarts competition year recently began at the program’s online home, www.lifesmarts.org, along with a variety of new resources for state coordinators, mentors and youth.

LifeSmarts is an educational competition that tests middle school and high school students nationwide on real-life consumer issues through online quizzes and live contests.

“The LifeSmarts program gives students the tools to make smart decisions and feel confident about their place in today’s fast-paced marketplace,” said Bernice Wilson, an urban resource management specialist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and Alabama’s LifeSmarts coordinator. “We’re proud to be preparing our teens and tweens to become the next generation of smart consumers and workers,” she said.

In its first 15 years, LifeSmarts has grown in numbers of student and adult participants, state partnerships, corporate sponsorships and quality of the program’s content. LifeSmarts competition questions have become more and more challenging, reflecting the increasingly complex marketplace that today’s consumers face.

Each year, students answer questions on consumer-oriented issues ranging from personal finance and health and safety to the environment, technology and consumer rights and responsibilities. Starting online each fall, the competition progresses to state playoffs and then builds to a high-spirited national championship in 2009 in St. Louis. At last year’s national competition in Minneapolis, Minn., students from Arizona were crowned the national champs.

The closing date for Alabama’s online competition is January 30, 2009. The LifeSmarts face-to-face competition is March 4, 2009 at Auburn University at Montgomery.

NCL partners with coordinators in 30 states, including Cooperative Extension, better business bureaus, credit unions leagues, state attorneys general and consumer protection agencies, Family, Career and Community Leaders of America chapters, Jump$tart Coalitions and others, to staff and promote the program. In Alabama, the Lifesmarts program is coordinated through Extension’s Urban and New Nontraditional Programs unit.

New this fall at www.lifesmarts.org are dozens of up-to-the-minute teaching resources for coaches, including innovative personal finance lessons made possible by an educational grant from Visa. Other major LifeSmarts contributors include the Verizon Foundation, American Century Investments, Best Buy, American Express and Toys“R”Us.

To test your LifeSmarts abilities, take a sample quiz at http://start.lifesmarts.org/. From there, click on “Daily Quiz” to get started.

Posted by dreynold at October 2, 2008 03:50 PM | TrackBack