Preview from Rhode Island!

Milton High School takes Massachusetts

By Brandi Williams, LifeSmarts Program Manager

I’m thrilled that I had the chance to attend the Massachusetts LifeSmarts competition in Boston this year! Coordinated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and held in their amazing offices in downtown Boston overlooking the Bay, I had the opportunity to see Massachusetts pride at its best.

Teams from across the state were in attendance, and there was so much incredible energy and excitement, from students, coaches and long-time LifeSmarts officials! It was fun to catch up with old friends from the Boston Fed, and meet coaches I’d only interacted with via phone and email and fax, and it was also great to see 2011 Massachusetts Champions, Palmer High School!

Something fun about the Mass competition: their judges use a buzzer to accept or reject questions! So when a team gets the answer correct, you hear a pleasant “Ding!” and when the team gets the answer incorrect, you hear an angry “BZZZZZ!” I got such a kick out of that!

At the end of a fun-filled day, the finalist teams from Milton High School and Palmer High School were neck-and-neck until the Challenge Round, and Milton High eventually took the game. It was a fantastic, nail-biting match, and both teams did an amazing job. I look forward to seeing the Milton team again at Nationals!

We want to hear from you!

The 2011-2012 year-end survey is live and now is the time to give us your feedback! Each year, we welcome hearing from coaches and students about your experiences using LifeSmarts, as we strive to make LifeSmarts even more meaningful for participants each coming year.

Your opinions count! Because of your feedback on this student survey last year, we began offering the opportunity to take practice quizzes on one topic only. This meant that, for students who felt shaky on issues like credit, insurance, and housing, they had the new chance to brush up on personal finance. As a result of student survey feedback, students now get to select both your difficulty level and the topic (or you can still select "all topics" to emulate a real quiz) for each practice quiz that you take.

Please take 5-10 minutes to answer a few questions on our online surveys, which will help guide us in improvements for next year.

Student survey - click here

Coach survey - click here

Championship! Philadelphia! Trivia!

The 2012 LifeSmarts National Championship is next month! With teams from across the country headed to Philadelphia this weekend, let’s take a look at some Philly trivia:

• The Liberty Bell weighs 2,080 pounds.
• Philadelphia is the site of the first presidential mansion and was once the United States capital city.
• Benjamin Jackson produced the country's first mustard in 1768 and sold it to fellow Philadelphians in glass bottles.
• Benjamin Franklin demonstrated electrical cooking in 1749. He killed a turkey by electric shock, then roasted it over a fire started by his "electrified bottle".
• The first daily newspaper was published in Philadelphia in 1784.
• Fairmount Park in Philadelphia is the largest city park with over 8,000 acres.
• In a house at 239 Arch Street, Betsy Ross fashioned the first American flag.
• If you dug straight down from Philadelphia to the other side of the globe you would end up in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
• The nation's first hospital opened in Philadelphia 1751.
• The Philadelphia Mint produces over 30 million coins per day.
• Philadelphia has more public art than any city in the country.
• Benjamin Franklin and four other signers of the Declaration of Independence are buried in Philadelphia’s Christ Church cemetery.

See you all in Philly!

Calling all Student Advisory Board applicants!

The LifeSmarts program staff has enjoyed working with the first ever LifeSmarts Student Advisory Board this past year. This year, we are looking for 10 students who will provide the participant voice for the LifeSmarts program, apply jointly with an adult coach, meet with the Student Advisory Board, create a personal action plan, and write a profile of another student while at Nationals! Interested? Click here for more information!

2011 LifeSmarts Champs, Nickerson HS, head to Philadelphia to try for another win!

Congratulations to the Nickerson High School LifeSmarts Team for winning the title of 2012 Kansas LifeSmarts Champions. Great job to the Buhler High School team for making Nickerson work hard to win the title in a very competitive re-match at the end of the day.

Listed below are the students who scored the highest in the individual LifeSmarts topic tests:

Personal Finance: Emily Thompson - Buhler High School
Consumer Rights & Responsibilties: Jerik Allen - Humboldt High School
Health & Safety: Branson Strasner - Haven High School
Technology: Kevin Smith - Great Bend High School
Environment: Brandon Yutzy - Haven High School

By all accounts, it was very exciting day of competition!

National Competition Checklist

As state champion coaches and students begin planning for nationals, here is a checklist to help you prepare:



1. Send NCL photos of your team competing at state to brandiw@nclnet.org or carolm@nclnet.org.

2. Make hotel reservations.

3. Send your state champion form to NCL (this was in the packet you received from your state coordinator when you won the state competition).

4. Warm up with the practice TeamSmarts quizzes available now through March 31.

5. Coaches, mark your calendars to join the LifeSmarts staff for a coach conference call on March 28 (5 p.m. Eastern) or April 3 (3 p.m. Eastern) – the same information will be covered on both calls, plan to join us for one of them.

6. Practice (use the Daily Quiz, LifeSmarts Daily Calendars, and as many practice quizzes as you can to have fun prepping with your team).

7. Design a team T-shirt to enter into the LifeSmarts T-shirt competition.

8. Choose gifts for your Sister Team.

9. Students are encouraged to apply to serve on the 2012-13 LifeSmarts Student Advisory Board. New this year, students must apply jointly with their coach – applications are open now and due April 6.

10. Pack your sweat suit, download "Eye of the Tiger," and get ready to run up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum like Rocky himself! 



Be sure to watch this blog for more news about Nationals.

Good luck and see you all at the National Championship!

Fenton High School for the win in Michigan!

For the second year in a row, Fenton High School will be heading to the LifeSmarts National Championship. Good going!

The winning team!
Cool trophies!
A big thank you to all our coordinators!

Congratulations Hawaii!

Iolani High School won the state title at the Hawaii State Capitol Auditorium earlier this month.

The members of the winning team are: Andrew Hsu, Michaela Kamemoto, Maile Beal, Rachel Ray, Kevin Suzuki. The team was coached by James Rubasch.

Congratulations guys and see you in Philadelphia!

Countdown to Philly!

It’s a busy time for all things LifeSmarts. Online competitions are still open in a few states through this weekend, state competitions are in full-swing (good luck to all of our teams competing this month and next), and we are counting down to nationals (59 days to Philly!).

I had the opportunity to attend the Wisconsin state LifeSmarts competition a couple weeks ago. Seeing my first live competition of the year reminded me just why this program is such a winner. Students were attending from all corners of Wisconsin. Competition was strong, but sportsmanship ruled the day (the two final teams shook hands and congratulated one another while awaiting the judges’ scores on their final activity), and the adult coordinators, volunteers, and coaches supported the teams and cheered for everyone as the students demonstrated their consumer smarts.

I was recently explaining the impetus for the LifeSmarts program and I mentioned that LifeSmarts was the “carrot” or fun element to encourage students to learn as much about real-world consumer issues as they could while still in High School. Watching the Wisconsin competitors reminded me that LifeSmarts does exactly that – spices up consumer education and teaches us all something in the process.

How did the Wisconsin state competition turn out? As is often the case, the state championship went down to the wire – the top two teams were tied with only the team activity to go. By knowing more about deficiency diseases, the Oconto team bested Westfield by 10 points to win the state title.

It was a great day, and it got me jazzed up for Nationals! I hope to see you there.

Congratulations individual topic winners!

The 2011 LifeSmarts National Championship in Hollywood, CA was a great success! Thanks to everyone who helped 2011 be such an incredible program year! However, we couldn’t let 2011 come to a close without acknowledging our individual topic winners. For the second year at the National LifeSmarts Championship, teens from each of the 33 state champion teams represented at nationals competed in individual topic area challenges, and the top five scorers received $500 scholarships from NCL.

This year’s winners were:

Environment: Maura Taylor, MD
Personal finance: Brian Vermillion, FL
Health & safety: Austin Hart, NH
Consumer rights & responsibilities: Jordy Shute, AZ
Technology: Robert Dickens, MD

Congratulations guys! Hope to see you next year!

Rubbing elbows in Hollywood

From New Hampshire team coach Chuck Bates:

The 2011 NH LifeSmarts Champs got to see the Jay Leno show Friday night. We met and shook hands with guests Actress Susan Lucci, Actor Rob Lowe, Tonight Show Band Director Ricky Miner, and Musician Moby. As we were getting ready to leave, we happened to see Jay heading upstairs; after calling out hello and mentioning that we were from New Hampshire, Jay came right down to to say hello and allowed us to take several pictures and chat with us . I've attached the best one.

In the photo are: my daughter Lisa, team members Galen, Sven, Teddy, Captain Cody, Assistant Coach Tim Quinney, Austin, Jay Leno, my wife Sue, and of course me (Chuck Bates).