CENTER FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION WINS GRANT

The Center for Economic Education recently received a $30,000 grant from the Virginia Council of Economic Education and a second five-year affiliation term with the National Council on Economic Education.

The center, established in 1973, strives to enhance school children's level of economic awareness and understanding through a variety of programs with public school systems in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Northampton and Accomack. It provides leadership and assistance in the development of economic curricula and promotes research that increases the effectiveness of economics instruction at all grade levels.

According to Martha Hofler, director of the center, the $30,000 grant will be used to conduct workshops for local teachers on how to implement economic education into their lessons.

"The workshops are geared to specific grade-level economics standards of learning. This could be anything from the economics of Colonial Virginia to finding economics in children's literature," she noted, adding that the center also provides credit courses.

"These classes are intended to provide teachers with a strong basic economic content as well as provide information on the wide variety of materials available for integrating economics across the curriculum."

The National Council on Economic Education is a nonprofit partnership of leaders in education, business and labor that is devoted to helping young people learn to think, choose and function in a changing global economy.

Old Dominion University has been affiliated with the organization of state-councils and more than 260 university-based centers for more than five years.