Young Ameritowne

One of the neat field trips that Scott and Michaela got to go on this year was to Young Ameritowne. For those that have never heard of it, as I had not, it is a minature version of a town that the kids have to run. They are given a bank account to manage, and a job within the town. There is a mayor, and police department to create and enforce rules. The students actually start getting ready for this trip about 5 months in advance. They are given a workbook and learn how to balance a check book, they petition for a job, then learn the responsibilities of their job. They get to work in groups of their job to creat game plans and all kinds of stuff like that.
Their big day was last month in early Feburary. Both of the kids were so excited about it, talking about it every night. I was going along also to help out. Actually I had no idea what I was going to be doing there, but I knew that I was going to have my camera in hand! We got there and it was pretty much a minature village set up inside. There were many different business there for the kids to run. Students were to work their jobs, then durring their break time they were to visit the other business's and shop from them. Each store offered different types of services, but they also had little toy things for their customers to buy. Kids were given Ameritown money, and a check book. They also had different rules to follow, some of them a bit silly...and if they were caught breaking the rules they would have to either pay a fine, or go to court to settle the matter. All in all it was a really neat event for the kids. One of those days that they learned a bunch, without realizing that they were learning!
My job while I was there was to work at the TV station, helping to make sure they took care of getting commercials filmed throughout the town, and also get all their bills paid, and to collect all the advertisment fees. Michaela was working as the Collage Photographer. Her job was to go around the town and take pictures of what was happening, and to capture the swearing in cerimonies for the mayor and other officals. Scott was the Bank President. His job was to make sure his tellers did as they were supposed to,
and to balance the banks books for all the accounts. I couldn't believe how much math he had to do that day. Good thing he likes math! I've added some pictures of the kids at work. It really was a fun day for all there.