Teens Get LifeSmart

by James Parks, Apr 28, 2009

The Final Four are New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Washington State. It’s not the NCAA final hoops quartet, but the National Consumers League’s (NCL’s) LifeSmarts national championship competition has the same tension and passion.

Teams of four to five teens, coached by an adult participant, compete in district and state matches with the state winners going to the national competition to vie for the national LifeSmarts title. More than 22,000 consumer savvy teens representing 30 states competed at the national competition, which ends today in St. Louis, held to teach the next generation of consumers how to succeed in the marketplace.

For 15 years, NCL’s LifeSmarts has been developing the consumer and marketplace knowledge and skills of teenagers in a fun way and rewards them for this knowledge. LifeSmarts is run as a game show-style competition and is open to all teens in the United States in high school and middle school.

The NCL also is teaching the teens the value of getting a good job with a union contract. The league has been one of the strongest allies in the union movement’s campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act and health care reform. Many union members also are involved in the LifeSmarts program as adult volunteers.

LifeSmarts topics are chosen to encourage and reward knowledge in the areas that matter most to consumers and workers in today’s marketplace: personal finance; health and safety; the environment; technology; and consumer rights and responsibilities. To learn more about LifeSmarts, click here.

And the winner of the LifeSmarts competition: The team from Wisconsin, which beat out a tough challenge by the team from Washington State for the national championship.

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