The 2015 International Economic Summit will be held at Gillette Stadium on January 8, 2015. The Bridgewater State University Center for Economic Education, the Massachusetts Council on Economic Education (MCEE) and Empower Yourself are partnering to make the International Economic Summit (IES) program a mainstay in the region, and we are requesting your participation in the IES program for the 2014-2015 academic year.

This program was introduced to the region just over five years ago and four teacher trainings have been conducted resulting in four mega summits at various locations across the region (Bridgewater State University, Harvard University and the last two at the Putnam East Atrium Patriot Place/ Gillette Stadium).

The Summit program is a hands-on, activity- based learning program for high school and middle school students that teaches the significance and the basic concepts of globalization, international economics and what it takes to make highly interdependent nations competitive in today’s dynamic economic environment.

The program includes a complete classroom curriculum plus a final activity in which students, divided into country teams, apply the concepts they learned in a simulation of today’s global economy. The program may be implemented as part of a school’s economics, government or geography class or after school program.

The classroom curriculum consists of lesson plans and activities that teach the core concepts of international economics and globalization. The lessons are correlated with national and state standards for economic education and include:

• Improving the global standard of living
• The need for long term economic stability .investment and growth
• The benefits of international trade
• Specialization and comparative advantage
• The forces of supply and demand in the global economy
• The cost of protectionism
• The role of central banks
• The balance between international competition and cooperation.

The Summit program provides motivation, acquisition and application of twenty-first century skills:

• As critical thinkers students identify, analyze and evaluate economic strengths and weaknesses of the countries of the world
• As problem solvers  students take on the role of economic advisors to their country
• As innovators students learn that “ pat answers and worn out ideas” will no achieve  their objectives in the competitive global community created by the Summit program
• As effective communicators, students  work in teams, where communication and collaboration are essential
•  As  effective collaborators student country teams learn that to “win” (advance the economy of their assigned country), they must collaborate with other countries
• The teacher training introduces the educators to the various components within the 10 week curriculum course and prepares them to run a mini summit. Additional webinars and videos are available online to reinforce and refresh.

For more information about the IES program click this link: http://www.econsummit.org/

If you have additional questions, please contact Margaret Brooks, President of the RI Council for Economic Education ricouncilforeconed@gmail.com or Scott Guild, 617.227.0111, scottguild@masseconed.org