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The Center interuniversitaire de recherche en analyze des organizations (CIRANO) offers free interactive educational experiences in economic literacy, to be enjoyed on a computer or tablet, intended for classes of 5e secondary and CEGEP.
The economy is part of our daily life. Basic knowledge in this area is essential to understand the world in which we live and to hope to be able to participate actively and in an informed way in civic life. Often, economic concepts are abstract for young people. Teachers find that they have uneven prior knowledge on this subject. The schools offering the course of economic education therefore aim to educate them about their next role as citizens in a world whose economic cogs have an impact on their daily life. So we are talking about economic literacy here.
This is why the CIRANO (Interuniversity Research Center in Organizational Analysis) offers the site FinEcoLab, an experiential approach to discover the economy, which involves students in interactive educational experiences to be lived on a computer or electronic tablet. These are not simple games, but meaningful educational activities that transform the class into a laboratory in which the pupil plays a main role: his own! It is particularly aimed at 5e secondary and cégépiens.
In the FinÉcoLab, you have to make simple economic decisions such as selling a good, saving in order to be able to face urgent expenses, take out insurance to face the risk of accident, participate in the financing of a collective good, etc. The results of the class, obtained in real time, are then used as a basis for the teacher to discuss with the students and explore the concepts under study.
By the way, the FinÉcoLab corresponds to the guiding aims of the Quebec school, because it allows the student to get to know himself better, to make the decisions that he considers the best for his own future. It better understands the concepts discovered in a meaningful context and integrates them in a lasting way. It is, in a way, a learning by experience and by action which makes it possible to make concrete realities which, too often, seem theoretical.
The lessons are therefore more lively and the students are more interested and motivated. The FinÉcoLab is free, completely turnkey, and easy to use. At present, a little more than twenty schools are implementing this program in their courses.
To find out more, we can watch a video which presents the site.
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