Description of Lesson:

• Launch [5 mins] - "What is a 'selling price'?" How can we calculate the selling price if we know the profit/loss margin? Where can we see examples of effective/ineffective selling prices? How do we know this? (Encouraging students to develop their use of mathematical literacy).
• Explore
  • Activity 1 [35 mins] - Note that the upcoming activity will act as an assessment of learning.
  • Introduce the share market to the class by spending 5 -10 minutes discussing the history of the share market. Advise students that they will NOT be using information in the actual share market for this activity, but the data will mimic trends of the real-world context.

Set the scene:

"You start with $400 to play on the stock market. Each company starts with a share value of $100. You must watch the stocks and watch the news to decide how the value of each company will change and decide when to sell your stocks and buy more. You may only own one of each stock! Prize for the top trader!"

Divide students into pairs or small groups and outline the rules of the game [see Worksheet 7]. Provide each group with the set amount to ‘invest’. Ask students to decide on a company to invest their money in and determine how many shares they can purchase given the current share purchase price. You may like to guide students and provide students with a list of factors to consider when investing (stability of the share price, longevity of the product etc) to help them make their decision.

Advise each group that they will need to track the value of their shares over '6 days' and determine when they will sell their shares to try and make the largest profit.

• Each group will need to keep a record of the daily share price and decide on which day they think they would sell their shares and what their profit/loss would be.
• Even if a group decides to ‘sell’ their shares on Day 1 they should keep recording the daily share price for a fortnight to see if they made the ‘right decision’ for the best profit.
• Alternatively, you may offer groups the option to sell part of their shares and reinvest their money in another company before the fortnight is finished.
• The aim is for students to reinvest their money to compete with other groups, for the highest profit, demonstrating their mathematical working along the way. Students will be assessed on their justification and explanation of the final outcome.

*Note: This activity may take more than 1 lesson to complete. Although this is sequenced in this unit as Lesson 7 of 8, this lesson could be used as a final conclusion to the unit as well as the topic's assessment of learning.

• Summarise [5 mins] - Students are required to calculate the selling price of their shares from the percentage of profit/loss from Day 1-6.