Monday, April 12, 2010

Calling on state champs to pilot our newest resources

The LifeSmarts program of the National Consumers League recently received an unrestricted education grant from Western Union to produce three new LifeSmarts U lessons aimed at educating teens (and their teachers and LifeSmarts coaches) about fraud. We were so excited to have this support from Western Union and the ability to broaden the content within LifeSmarts U.

The first lesson, Fact or Fake Out, is available to pilot at our teaching resources page at lifesmarts.org. We would especially ask state champion coaches to help us pilot the materials and provide us with their feedback at the Coaches meeting on April 24. As extra incentive, coaches (and their teams) will find that the information covered by this lesson shows up throughout the competitions at nationals this year. (In fact, one team activity will be devoted exclusively to fraud.)

The second lesson, which will debut at the national competition, breaks down the components of fraud so that consumers can recognize the tell-tale signs and appreciate how hard some scammers will work to steal their money.

The third lesson gives students practical tips for protecting themselves from fraud, highlights the importance of reporting it, and identifies the agencies that are there to help. After the pilot concludes, all three lessons will be available on the LifeSmarts U portion of the LifeSmarts Web site this summer.