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The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia publishes lessons for K-12 teachers to use to teach economics and personal finance in their own classrooms. The lessons emphasize active- and collaborative-learning teaching methodologies.
All lessons are downloadable in PDF format.
Lesson Title |
Lesson Description |
Concepts |
Age/Grade Level |
| Let’s Get Financially Focused! (146 KB, 35 pages)  |
Students complete a short assessment of their knowledge about personal finance. Then, students learn concepts and terms related to personal financial education by participating in a bingo game. Working in groups, students prepare a set of calculations as financial advisers for a mock client. | credit, interest rates, fraud, identity theft, purposes and functions of the Federal Reserve System | Grades 9-12 |
| Monetary Policy (417 KB, 45 pages) |
Working in groups, students develop an understanding of monetary policy. Students will learn about the indicators the Fed uses to determine what changes, if any, should be made to the course of monetary policy. The groups play a card game to review the vocabulary associated with the, economic indicators. | discount rate, economic indicators, Federal Reserve, federal funds rate, interest rates, monetary policy, open market operations, reserve requirements | Grades 9-12 |
| The Case of the Gigantic $100,000 Bill (718 KB, 11 pages) |
In this lesson, students participate in a demonstration of the money creation process using a large $100,000 bill. Expansions of the money supply caused by successive deposits and loans are traced on the board so that students can observe the process. Required reserves are cut from the large bill during each stage of the process. Students learn to calculate the upper bound of the money creation process using the simple money multiplier. | money creation, money multiplier, money supply | Grades 9-12 |
| What Does the Fed Do? (725 KB, 29 pages) |
Students participate in a banking activity to learn more about the fractional reserve banking system. Students learn about the three basic functions of the Federal Reserve System and reflect on the validity of a dozen statements about the Federal Reserve. | bank failure, bank panic, bank reserves, bank run, discount rate, Federal Reserve System, fractional reserve banking system, monetary policy, open market operations, reserve requirement | Grades 9-12 |
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