Grades 6–8 · Lesson 2 · 50 minutes
What moves a price?
Students analyze how news, popularity, scarcity, and sentiment can affect simulated prices.
StockSt uses fictional currency and simulated shares for education only. This is not investment advice.
Warm-up
Show two headlines, one positive and one negative, about a fictional celebrity. Ask students to predict how a market might react to each and to explain their thinking.
Mini-lesson
- Explain that prices reflect expectations. Buyers may pay more when they expect future success, and sellers may accept less when they expect trouble.
- Review the percentage-change formula with a quick example: percent change equals the new price minus the old price, divided by the old price, times 100.
StockSt activity
- Each student selects one celebrity share.
- Before a scheduled in-game news event, students record the share’s current price.
- After the event, students record the new price and calculate the percentage change.
Discussion
- What caused the change?
- Was the reaction immediate or delayed?
- Did everyone react the same way?
Exit ticket
Students name one factor that could raise a share price and one that could lower it.
Assessment
Students calculate percentage change and support a price-movement explanation with simulation evidence. Investment-game activities from youth financial education programs similarly ask students to examine scenarios that can affect an imaginary stock and to discuss risks and rewards.
Student Learn links
Assign these before or after class so students practice the same ideas.