UTSA student group teaches Northside ISD students 'Story of Money'

(Nov. 8, 2004)--Does money really make the world go 'round? Third and fourth grade students at Passmore Elementary School in the Northside Independent School District learned about currency and coins Oct. 1 in the presentation, "The Story of Money." The presentation was by UTSA business organization Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), as part of the group's community outreach projects.

Five SIFE students took their story on the road for the first of a series of Friday morning presentations at area elementary schools. They covered the topics of bartering, division of labor, portability of money and other topics with dancing, songs about money, audience participation, and a giant dollar bill and other visual aids. Another group project, "To Your Credit," teaches high school seniors about managing credit cards.

Pictured in the top photo (from left) are UTSA SIFE Ameen Ameeri, Norah Wilkinson, David Villarreal, Linda Carolan and Ahmed Al Awadhi. In the lower photo, SIFE members work with elementary students.

With 1,700 teams in 42 countries, SIFE students work with their communities on projects relating to market economics, entrepreneurship, financial skills and business ethics. The goal is to offer young students opportunities to learn confidence, improve communication skills, gain leadership skills and experience working as a team to prepare for real-world challenges.

Recently, UTSA hosted the regional SIFE Conference at the Downtown Campus where SIFE representatives from universities throughout Texas gathered. SIFE staff members explained SIFE competitions and how judges are selected from national corporations. According to the representatives, SIFE competitions provide many networking opportunities and career fairs provide more than 400,000 jobs annually with 220 major corporations.

For more information about the SIFE Virtual Career Fair and message board, visit the SIFE Web site.

For more information about SIFE, e-mail Consuelo Ramirez, SIFE adviser and College of Business management professor.

--Linda Carolan, SIFE co-president