Are you smarter than a 5th grader?  Professor David Mitchell, Director of the Center for Economic Education at MSU, recently spent time with the 5th graders at Greenwood Elementary teaching them a bit about the functions of money through a few interactive exercises.

In one activity, students were given a bag of treats that had different quantities of different things inside. For example, some might have Hello Kitty pencils, Spiderman pens, a slinky, a small flashlight, and assorted candies. Students were asked if they liked everything in their bag and then were given a few minutes to trade with their classmates if they wanted something else. At the conclusion of trading, students were asked how easy or difficult it was to trade and find people who had the items that they wanted and were willing to trade. In short, students were introduced to the problem of the double coincidence of wants. Students were then told how money, as a medium of exchange, solves the problem of the double coincidence of wants.

Students also learned about the need to include anti-counterfeiting measures in money, were shown different currencies from around the world, and were shown a picture of the stone money of Yap, a currency that can weigh up to 3 tons!