March Madness - Student vs. Faculty Basketball Game

On Friday March 11, at 2:15 in the Gym, the Faculty took on the Students in the Annual March Madness Basketball Game. If the Middle School Students won, they would get an Out of Uniform Day. The Students were all pumped up, even for their warm ups. The Faculty was warming up, getting ready to defeat the students and earn their own Out of Uniform Day.

The Faculty took on the Eighth Grade students first. The Faculty went up by a few points, with the students tagging behind. The Eighth Graders tried their best to keep an even game.  When it was time for us, the Seventh Graders, to sub in for the Eighth Graders, the students were not too far behind. Representing the Seventh Grader, we did our best, trying to give the students some more points, but sadly did not. The Faculty went up by a lot more by the time the Sixth graders came in to relieve us. They tried and tried to bring us back, but the Faculty just went up more. The Eighth graders went back in for one last chance to win the game. They tried to bring us back a little bit, but did not bring us very far, not enough, anyway, to win the game.  The Faculty had a victory, and the students did not win their Out of Uniform Day.   

-- Text by Hailey M. ; Photos by Julianna M.

Money, Money, MOH-NAY!

Nylah A., Mimi N. and Emily O at JA Finance Park

It was such a fun learning experience to be able to go to JA Finance Park on Thursday, March 10, 2011. Throughout the last month in History class we learned about finance in the real world, such as credit and debit cards, stocks, and budgets. This program is not well known, in fact the GFS Middle School was the first class to participate in the pilot of the program. Everyone in the Seventh Grade was looking forward to this day and I know we all had a great time.

Biztown Center

The Day started off at 9:30 AM when we first entered Finance Park. It looked like a mini town, with streets, trees, and shops; for those of you have been there is was just like Biztown! We were all called to the center of the town where we were told about what we were going to do that day. First, we were assigned a home base, a place where you could organize your files and complete your expenses worksheets.

GFS Girls Balancing Their Budgets

Once we were there we were assigned a life card, this included your job, number of kids, marital status and income. I was very fortunate to get a good job. I was an EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) Compliance Officer and had a Gross Annual Income of $53,758. I had two kids (6 years and 9 years) and was single. I was lucky to get such a good job that paid well. Some people got Jobs like a Pet Caretaker and were paid as little of a Gross Annual Income of $20,000 a year. After we got our life scenarios, we began to budget the amount of money we could spend a month in categories like Housing, Transportation, Dinning Out and Electrical.

After we budgeted our money, we went around to all of the business to collect sheets explaining about what you could buy from this business. Next, with the sheets that we had collected, we decided the amounts we wanted to spend in each category. For Example, the worksheet for housing showed you six housing options within your price range that you could purchase. Lastly, we went back to all the businesses to make our final payments.

Overall, Finance Park was a fun and educational learning experience.

As Julianna M. said, “It was a great experience and an important life lesson.”

Also Jackie M. commented, "I thought it was really cool the way it was set up. It taught what I need to know to do when I am older and gave me an important life lesson. I think it is a topic that everyone should know, because after college you will have to use it.”

I’m sure we will be able to put this knowledge to good use in the future!

-- Text and Photos by Emily O. (Class of 2016)