****Congratulations to the winners for Fall 2001****

1-Billings Skyview, stock price $88

2- Rapelje, stock price $72

3-tie Plevna and Twin Bridges, stock price $65

The Montana Chamber Foundation sponsors a business simulation called the High School Business Challenge.  In Spring of 2000, 147 students in eight schools participated in the pilot program.  For school year 2000 - 2001, 477 students in 29 schools across Montana competed.  The High School Business Challenge follows the former Business Week, a week-long program on the MSU-Bozeman campus that taught high school students business principles from 1982-1999.

The High School Business Challenge now goes directly into the classroom.  We contract with the Montana Council on Economic Education to provide teachers the materials and support to conduct the High School Business Challenge as part of their curriculum.  Teachers still attend Business Week for Teachers at MSU-Bozeman each summer to learn the High School Business Challenge and other business programs.  They (and other teachers who are instructed individually) then schedule the High School Business Challenge for students in their classes.

Students form teams of three to five students and make all the operating decisions for their theoretical business, the manufacture and sales of a compact personal DVD player.  Each week of classroom decisions represents a business quarter.  The game runs for 8 weeks during a semester, the equivalent of 2 years in their business.

Students make decisions in:

• Research and Development

• Marketing and Advertising

• Production and Inventory

• Pricing

• Ethics

Each week (business quarter), the MCEE game administrator collects the team decisions, evaluates them against “competitors” (other teams), computes the sales for that quarter, and returns the results to the teams, who then make new decisions.

Each team starts with a stock price of $25.  The final stock price is based on:

• Total Profits

• Profit Trends

• Return on Sales

• Stock Price and Dividends

• Good Corporate Citizen Mini-Cases

The three teams with the highest stock price at the end of the semester win cash prizes and t-shirts.  Teachers of the top team each semester are also rewarded.  The Fall 2001 teacher  received round trip tickets on Big Sky Airlines and a 1 night stay and dinner at Grouse Mountain Lodge in Whitefish.  The top team for the year will be invited to the 2002 Montana Chamber and Governor's Cup golf tournament.

Schools that participated in school year 2000/01:

Billings West	Ekalaka	Park City
Bozeman	Fairfield	Park County (Livingston)
Brady	Fergus County (Lewistown)	Plevna
Broadwater County - Townsend	Geyser	Rapalje
Butte High	Great Falls High	Roundup
C.M. Russell (Great Falls)	Hardin	Shields Valley (Clyde Park)
Chinook	Heritage Christian (Bozeman)	Twin Bridges
Colstrip	Jefferson County (Boulder)	Victor
Conrad	Judith Gap	Winifred
Dawson County (Glendive)	Missoula Big Sky

 

Click here to see the winners!

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