Teaching students about financial literacy topics is essential in preparing them for life outside of the classroom. But where do you start, and how do you get students interested in this topic? Teaching kids about sustainable investing is a great way to get them thinking about their financial choices and their impact on the world.
In today’s blog post, I have a special set of resources to share with you, including a free lesson from EVERFI K12. They have a brand-new course that teaches high school students about sustainable investing. Students will learn about how to align the financial choices they make with their personal values and how to leave a lasting social impact.
Let’s jump into everything this new course has to offer and why you might want to teach sustainable investing this school year.
Financial Literacy Resources
Where can you go to find financial literacy resources for students? Regular readers of the blog might remember my conversation with Alyssa Lyons this past December about financial literacy and EVERFI K12’s offerings. We discussed tips for educators who want to inject real world experiences into their classrooms and how their powerful digital curriculum centers around real world education and building critical life skills like financial literacy. You can listen to the episode on the blog by heading to this page, or you can press play below.
The team at EVERFI K12 has lots of resources for teachers to use as is or adapt to the needs of their students. This year, they have a brand-new course designed for high school students to teach them all about sustainable investing. It’s broken down into three parts:
- How Investing Works: Students explore the various aspects of investing, including risks and opportunities and the differences between saving and investing.
- Learn About Sustainable Investing: Students learn how sustainable investing can be one of many considerations when trying to create an impact and how to evaluate financial choices.
- Investing Exploration: Students are introduced to characters across the sustainable investing spectrum with different financial confidence levels. They help these characters learn about making sustainable, responsible, and impactful financial decisions.
What is sustainable investing?
Sustainable investing includes a range of practices where investors make a conscious decision to achieve financial returns through their investments while promoting social and environmental causes that are important to them. Instead of just looking at their numerical return on investment, someone who practices sustainable investing also considers environmental and social factors when evaluating the companies and assets they want to invest in.
By incorporating sustainability concerns into their decision-making processes, investors can support companies that actively work towards addressing global challenges. So if your students are interested in topics like climate change or environmental stewardship, this is a great way to start a conversation on financial literacy and making financial decisions that impact the world.
4 Reasons to Teach Sustainable Investing
Connect to Student Values
Teaching about sustainable investing is an excellent way for students to identify what is important to them. It can help kids consider the impact of their short- and long-term financial choices. They might be able to identify their values but haven’t made a connection to their decision-making.
Boost Critical Thinking
Reviewing the values of a company and its commitment to sustainability requires students to think critically. This practice might require them to conduct research on different topics. They can also craft questions to ask someone who represents a specific company or investment opportunity.
Learn How to Diversify
Are you introducing students to a handful of different investment options in your financial literacy program? You can include sustainable investing in a conversation on diversifying investments. Students might pick one cause that is important to them and involves investigating their options for investing.
Become Socially Responsible
The concept of sustainable investing might be brand new to your students. Teaching sustainability investing could be a great next step for helping students become socially responsible. This is especially true if you spend time talking about community service projects or even recycling in your school building,
Ready to help students learn how to make impactful financial choices? Head over to this page to learn more about this new course from EVERFI K12. And use this link to request a free lesson. If you’re interested in helping students explore financial literacy topics, this course is the perfect place to start!
