What's at stake in 2012

LifeSmarts Program Director Lisa Hertzberg shows off this year's top trophy.

Exciting prizes and scholarships are on the line this year at the 2012 National LifeSmarts Championship in Philadelphia! Check this out -- and good luck to all!

First place team - each member receives:

$2,200 in scholarships from Visa, Toyota Financial Services, and Underwriters Laboratories

Gift cards valued at $200

Coach: $1,000 educational grant, gift cards worth more than $100, and a sweet treat gift pack

Second place team - each member receives:

$1,000 in scholarships

Coach: gift cards worth more than $100, and a sweet treat gift pack

Two third place teams - each member receives:

$550 in scholarships

Coach: gift cards worth more than $100, and a sweet treat gift pack

Four fourth place teams - each member receives:

$200 in scholarships 

Coach: gift cards worth more than $100

Topic champions and coach, student, and coordinator of the year each receive fabulous prizes as well!

Checking in and getting settled

FCCLA team from Friona, Texas, checking out the scoreboard and bracket system.

Donna Mancuso and her team from Crosby High in Connecticut getting registered with the lovely Miss Tee, NCL's Office Manager.

The growing mountain of luggage, from near and far all over the United States, as students check in at the Sheraton.

It's really happening!

Alabama has arrived!

The teams are landing in Philly! Team activities will soon begin, and the competition is almost officially underway! Remember to turn in your coach of the year forms by 1pm Monday at the registration desk, and don't forget to check the online scoreboard here to keep track of your team's progress!

Hello from Florida!

Submitted by Neemah Najafi, Florida

We are a team of 4 seniors and 1 freshman from Paxon School for Advanced Studies. We live in Jacksonville, Florida and competed in Tampa and won the title of 2012 Florida Champions. For all of us, this is our first year on a LifeSmarts team. However, our coach Kathryn Loggie has been doing LifeSmarts for several years now. Last year, our school’s team won the Florida title and got 4^th place in the national championship.

To prepare, we meet after school with snacks and drinks and practice doing buzzer questions, multiple choice questions, team activities, and lightning rounds. Each of us on the team picked one of the five categories of LifeSmarts topics to specialize in so as to have a more well-rounded team. We are really excited to go to Philadelphia and look forward to meeting the rest of the teams, especially our sister team, Arizona. And of course we can’t wait to find a great Philly cheesesteak!

Our state coordinator is Gwendolyn Worlds.

Welcome to the City of Brotherly Love!

Let the games begin!

The LifeSmarts team has officially landed in beautiful Philadelphia! (Beautiful, but not for long - check the weather forecast below and consider packing your galoshes and umbrellas.) Teams are being spotted trickling in as well. The 2012 National LifeSmarts Championship kicks off tomorrow. See you tomorrow at the registration desk starting at 12pm. Be sure to get your team photo taken!

We are the Wildcats

Submitted by the Massachusetts team

We are the Wildcats from Milton, Massachusetts. Milton is one of the top places to live in the country, according to Money Magazine. Besides our great school system, I think Money Magazine sees that we are a smaller community less than 10 min. from Boston, have a State Park, The Blue Hills, for skiing and hiking, and in ten minutes we can be at the ocean. In the neighboring community, the city of Quincy, you find the birthplaces of Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams. If you check the statistics in Boston Magazine, they have Milton listed as one of the top school system in the state.

We also have this really young rapper named Younggod aka Dmoney. Our school system differs from others as Milton is the home to one of the few public French Immersion programs in the country which means you can have all your lessons taught in French in the younger grades to help you become bi-lingual. We also have the highest concentration of Irish in the country (40 percent).

Our team members are Jack Caljouw (Sophomore), Aaron Chiu (Senior), Pat Kelly(Senior), Devon Stanley (Junior), and Mona Yuan, (Junior). Most of us became involved with Lifesmarts through classes taught by Mr. Arenburg. He had us doing practice quizzes in our classes. which led to an interest of a Lifesmarts' club after school.

We have prepared for this competition by practicing with buzzers, Teamsmarts, and online quizzes. Our key strategy is repetition so we will be familiar with the tournament format and the questions. However, the Lifesmarts'competition here in Massachusetts was extremely tough. In the competition we were not always aware of our score, so we would be really nervous and scared. Our opponents were CHALLENGING CONTESTANTS, especially since most of them had more experience than us. In the final round of the state tournament, we were practically tied with our opposing team until the end. It was really nerve-racking. As a team, this year was our second time competing at the state level and it will be our first time at the Nationals.

Our coaches are Mr. Arenburg and Mrs. Mikels. Mr. Arenburg teaches Personal Finance and Technology. He started Lifesmarts as an extracurricular activity at our high school in 2006. Mrs. Mikels is a math teacher and has assisted Mr. Arenburg for the past four years with this club.

We are looking forward to traveling to Philadelphia. Not only do we get to miss school, we get an extended vacation. We feel honored to be able to represent the State of Massachusetts and our High School. We are excited to meet new people and to see how we will do in the competition.

Thank you for hosting us. It should be a great four days.

Can't join us in Philly? Stay up to date online

Even if you can’t join the National Consumers League and the LifeSmarts state champions in Philadelphia for the 2012 National LifeSmarts Championship, you can still catch the action online!

Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Semi-finals- 9 am Eastern Daylight
Finals- 10:45 am EDT

Nationals Blog

Here at www.lifesmartsnationals.blogspot.com, NCL will provide frequently updated content, like team photos, stories, and a regularly updated competition grid, so you can chart your team’s progress from home!

Live Streaming!

This year, watch the final morning of competition live online at www.lifesmarts.org!

Stay tuned in to this blog and lifesmarts.org to keep up with this year's excitement!

Thanks, Visa!

The LifeSmarts program has a lot to be thankful for this year—consumer-savvy teens representing 32 states will compete at this year’s national event later this week in Philadelphia. Program participation throughout the 2011-2012 year has been excellent: more than 15,000 teens answered more than 3 million consumer questions online for a chance to represent their states at the 2012 National LifeSmarts Championship.

Looking towards the future, LifeSmarts shows every sign of growing bigger and better than ever. Last season, Visa announced a three-year major grant to help underwrite the program, sponsor development of personal finance lessons and teaching tools, increase marketing efforts for LifeSmarts, and bolster NCL’s outreach on consumer fraud. With Visa’s help, LifeSmarts is looking forward to providing future generations of teens with the skills and knowledge they will need to successfully navigate the increasingly complex consumer landscape.

Thanks, Visa! See you in Philly!

‘Seven minutes in heaven’ for your brain: Speed Dating the Experts

Every year, dozens of highly-respected experts serve as LifeSmarts judges. They come from all over the country, and bring a strong knowledge of business, consumer, and government policy to our tournaments. This year, in addition to their traditional duties behind the judges’ table, they'll also be “working the room” during our new competition. It’s a fast-paced event we're calling “Speed Dating the Experts.”

So here’s how LifeSmarts speed-dating works: each expert will be at a table, and teams will have exactly seven minutes to complete the activity before them, earning as many points as possible. Though each team will meet ten of the experts, there are only five game formats. The game you play depends on the expert you’re with at the time.

These are the five games:

1. Just Say It: It’s just like “Password.” Remember that game? Me neither. Look it up online, Betty White used to play it all the time.
2. Take A Spin: Players use a spinner to determine which topic they will tackle.
3. Jolt to the Brain: Just like the popular Lightning Rounds: ten rapid-fire questions in a row.
4. Slam: Teams are given very short clues (very short--like three letters) and have to identify the concept.
5. Picture This: Teams have to decipher pictures and explain the concept of six image sets--like this one:

Get it? War and tea = warranty!
Don't forget to explain what it is.  

As a kicker, some of the experts will have a “Super Seven” bonus. The team will have to guess a word or phrase, and the expert can give them clues...for a price. For each clue, the bonus goes down by one point. Since teams will only have one chance to guess at a Super Seven, strategy will be crucial.

The highest possible score teams can earn (without bonuses) in this competition is 120 points, but hopefully teams will get more from it than mere points. This is an opportunity for teams to better know the people who make LifeSmarts possible every year, and who knows? One may make some new friends along the way.

Meet the Arizona state champs

Submitted by Scott Bearchell, Arizona team captain

The FiveGuys are a team from Flagstaff, Arizona. We are an Internet team since our state doesn't have a state competition. Our state is the 48th in the Union and we are celebrating our Centennial this year! Scott Bearchell, team captain, and Christopher Carsey have been on the Arizona team before; Christopher in Miami and Scott in Miami and LA. Morgan Maycumber, Noah Shute, and Paul Bearchell are new this year, but all of them have had a sibling who was on the team in years past. Scott, Christopher, and Paul play varsity tennis for Flagstaff High School. Morgan, along with the rest of the team, plays on a competitive airsoft team. Since Christopher is a long distance runner, our team must run up the Art museum's "Rocky" steps in Philadelphia. Our team is extremely excited to be a part of the LifeSmarts National competition in Philadelphia and are looking forward to meeting other teams including our sister team, Florida, and representing the state of Arizona in the competition.

Marshall High School takes Virginia

By Brandi Williams, LifeSmarts Program Manager

This was my third year attending the Virginia LifeSmarts state competition in Richmond. Held on the gorgeous University of Richmond campus on a beautiful early spring day, teams from across Virginia competed for the chance to represent the Commonwealth at the National LifeSmarts Championship in Philadelphia.

Following the Nationals format, the Virginia competition used cumulative scoring to determine its finalists. This added tons of excitement to the competition, since it allowed all teams to remain in the running for most of the day! The Honorable Matt Lohr, Commissioner of Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences, served as Question Master for the Final match between the Marshall High School Statesmen I team and the Henrico County 4-H WYSIWIG team, and the match was close! But the Statesmen I took the competition and title of Virginia State Champion by one question, and I look forward to seeing them again at Nationals!

As always, I had a fantastic time at the competition in Richmond. The dedicated members of the Virginia LifeSmarts Coalition always strive to give the amazing teams who attend the annual competition a meaningful, educational and, most of all, fun experience, and they succeeded again this year. Thanks to the leadership of Dr. Celia Ray Hayhoe, Virginia’s long-time state LifeSmarts coordinator, everyone had an amazing time. I can’t wait to do it again next year!

Good luck from LifeSmarts alumni

Video greetings from college students Gabi Sclafani, LifeSmarts first Consumer Rights & Responsibilities topic winner, and Ben Shand, a member of the 2010 Rhode Island LifeSmarts state champion team. The two sent this congratulations video to this year's RI state champs in preparation for nationals in Philadelphia. Thanks, RI State Coordinator Jim Hedemark, for sharing this fun video with us! It's a good luck video aimed at Barrington High School champs, but it has some good advice for everyone. Thanks, Gabi and Ben!