Boosting Student Skills with Hands-on Experience
- sriggins57
- Jun 30
- 7 min read
With a boost in participation in our programs, we boosted the students' skills in various ways - budgeting, savings and retirement, starting the conversation on credit cards, and MORE this school year!
kicking off the school year
During the Fall 2024 semester, Nex-Gen welcomed over 280 students in grades 8th - 12th to Lenora for our Life$kills program! In Spring 2025, we welcomed an additional 66 students in 11th - 12th grades. This was made possible by CoBank and Nex-Tech, who donated funds to
cover student fees within the 2024-25 school year. We are thankful for their donations to help us reach students within our 28-county area.
Starting in October, we kicked off our school year with Natoma students. This small group of students were most shocked at the cost of childcare! In 2021 when we researched the amount of each budget item within our area, we found that childcare varied from county to county. We selected an amount from several areas and found the average cost of childcare. To break it down even more, we give the students the option of full-time, part-time, and alternative hour childcare. We also separated each by age, with each age range costing something different. Most of the students are assigned children at various ages. For the sake of the simulation, we decided assigning dependents would help teach them how to prioritize and alter their budget as needed. To learn more about how we built our Life$kills program, you can read through our blog post Adulting with Life$kills.
sharing About their Hands-on experience
Golden Plains was the next school to attend. After participating in our program, we ask the students to take a quick survey about their day. We ask them what surprised them most, what their favorite parts and least favorite parts were, if they had an "ah-ha" moment during the activity, etc. Some students gave us additional comments such as:
"It was a great learning experience and I love the interactive part in the beginning!" - Sophomore
"I believe this program is important because students/younger audiences are able to understand more about money management." - Senior
"Depending on how much [money] you start off with also depends on how secure you feel making decisions. I saw with my partner who didn't have much was more reluctant about making a bigger decision. While I, who had a lot more to start off with, was more comfortable making the bigger decisions feeling like they won't lead to a huge loss." - Sophomore
These students who attend Life$kills become more aware of the importance of budgeting, and gain tools to help them do so once they graduate. But they also develop an understanding for those around them and that each person may have to make different decisions for a reason.
debit or credit
Plainville visited us next. Many of these students shared with us that they enjoyed playing our Kahoot! game. If you haven't heard of Kahoot! before, it's an amazing tool that has been utilized in and out of classrooms to create an interactive experience that all students enjoy. As descibed on their website, "Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that makes it easy to create, share and play learning games or trivia quizzes in minutes." Students use their phones or a laptop and type in the game code to join. They can work alone or in teams to answer the questions we ask on the board. If they answer quick enough and correctly, they gain points to move their way to the top of the leaderboard. Once the game is over, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place gets to choose a prize (oftentimes snacks!). We chose to utilize Kahoot! for our Paying with Plastic lesson during Life$kills to give the students a fun way of learning about debit cards, credit cards, ATM cards, and gift cards.
Over the last few years during our Young AmeriTowne program, we noticed that students were getting debit cards and credit cards confused with each other. After thinking about how we could continue that conversation into our Life$kills program, we chose to have a quick game as a fun way to include that lesson. While we don't expect each student to understand fully what a credit card entails or APR, etc. by the time they leave our program, we do hope the students can use what we share with them to start a conversation with their parents, teachers, or peers about being smart when it comes to using a debit or credit card.
Statistics
Brewster, St. Francis, Lakeside, Palco, Stockton, Northern Valley, Phillipsburg, and Hill City were schools that also attended Life$kills this school year. Of the students who filled out our follow-up survey, we found that nearly 70% of the students rated the impact Life$kills made on their understanding of personal finance as a 4 out of 5 or higher. Additionally, 93% of these students learned money management, 22% learned how to write a check, 36% learned time management, and 48% learned about community involvement/readiness.
Before students attend, we have them fill out a questionnaire about their job interests, work ethic, how much time they'd be willing to commit to post-secondary education for a job, etc. After students fill that out, we assign them a role with a monthly salary, dependents, etc. Taking a look at the responses, we found that 44% of students are interested in committing 1-2 years to post-secondary education at a vocational school, trade school, or even an Associate's Degree program. This is followed with 37% of students willing to commit 4-5 years for a Bachelor's Degree. In addition, 14% said they'd be willing to commit to 6 or more years for an advanced degree and 5% were unsure.
Springing into the spring semester
During the Fall 2024 semester and Spring 2025 semester, Nex-Gen welcomed over 833 students in grades 3rd - 8th to Lenora for our AmeriTowne program! With 21 schools joining us this school year, we also reached a new milestone, having our largest group of students attend AmeriTowne.
Young AmeriTowne of Kansas starts with a 4-6 week curriculum being taught at school before attending for a day of excitement, learning, and hands-on experience. During the curriculum, students fill out a resume, participate in an interview, and then job training before visiting Lenora. During their attendance day, students become the citizens of AmeriTowne, running the Towne as little adults. To learn more about what AmeriTowne is all about, you can read our previous blog post or visit the Young AmeriTowne page on our website.
Voices of the Volunteers
Nex-Gen appreciates the time each volunteer gave to help the students during their attendance day. The roles of the volunteers are to be guides-on-the-side, allowing the students to make the final decisions but still being able to help answer any questions the students may have. It’s amazing to watch the students as they're participating in Towne, but it’s also great to see the adult volunteers enjoying their time as well.
After the day, the volunteers are given the opportunity to take a Follow Up Survey to share their experience with us. When asked what they saw the students learn while participating, 91% of them said money management, 67% saw students learning how to write a check, and 83% saw time management and teamwork. Additionally, an “ah-ha” moment they witnessed from students included:
“Students that don’t normally excel in the classroom really shined today!”
“When they understood the benefit of writing down their withdrawals in their check registers.”
“Organizations strategies to manage their business.”
“It’s neat to see the children’s reactions when they realize this is “real” money and they have to keep track of it, count it, and put it away. I also liked watching their confidence grow as they learned their jobs.”
The volunteers also rate the impact they believe AmeriTowne made on the students’ understanding of personal finance and basic economics from 1-5 (1 = no impact, 5 = high impact), with 90% of them rating it a 3 or higher!
Reaching a milestone
Earlier I mentioned that we reached a milestone in hosting our largest group of students to attend Young AmeriTowne of Kansas. This year Colby Middle School joined us for the first time bringing 77 5th grade students to Lenora! Prior to this date, the largest class size to attend had 72 students and attended in 2022. While this seems like it may have been only a
small jump in numbers, adding those extra students was exciting! Of course, we were nervous about having quite a large number of kids, but we were thankful to have a busy “street” (hallway, but we like to call this our street to play into the simulation of a Towne) and amazing teachers and volunteers to help us run a successful Towne.
Moving right along!
Although the school year has just recently concluded, we at Nex-Gen are already looking forward to the 2025-26 school year for our LifeSkills and AmeriTowne programs! This summer we will be updating, creating, and brainstorming for both programs in hopes to share these experiences with even more schools and students.
If you or someone you know is interested in visiting AmeriTowne during the summer, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us! Our LifeSkills/AmeriTowne Coordinator, Sabre Riggins, or our Executive Director, Kelli Hueneke, would be more than happy to schedule a date with you for a visit or answer any questions you may have.
To see more pictures from our attendance dates, visit our Facebook page!
Young AmeriTowne® of Kansas in the Northwest Kansas area is being administered by Nex-Generation Round Up for Youth, Inc., under a license from Young Americans Center for Financial Education in Denver, CO. "Young AmeriTowne" and "Young Americans Center for Financial Education" are registered trademarks of Young Americans Center for Financial Education, Denver, CO, and the Young AmeriTowne logo is a trademark of Young Americans Center for Financial Education, Denver, CO.
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