Welcome to Virgina
Congratulations to the
Spotslyvania High School
2008 Virginia LifeSmarts Champions
and
2008 LifeSmarts National Third Place Team
LifeSmarts,...the ultimate consumer challenge," is a quiz bowl competition which tests the knowledge of high school students on important consumer information in an entertaining way, and rewards them for this knowledge.
Teens as Consumers
Regardless of age, income, or job, every person is a consumer. Understanding how to make decisions, use resources wisely, and exercise rights and responsibilities in the marketplace is important to economic survival and growth. Consumer education empowers individuals to take responsibility for themselves. Educated consumers make strong families, communities and marketplaces.By acquiring these skills early in life, teens enter the complex marketplace more prepared and able to successfully manage their resources.
- Teens spend billions of dollars and influence family members to spend billions more, although they lack the important consumer information to make responsible consumer decisions.
- Teens face decisions about buying or leasing a car, saving money, balancing a checkbook, applying for and using a credit card, staying healthy, using computers, voting, following laws and regulations, holding a job, and other issues. They often have no experience to help them make the right decisions.
- Teens are often victims of fraud and scams. They are often uneducated about the pitfalls of many "deals" that would attract them.
The National Coalition for Consumer Education created "LifeSmarts ...the ultimate consumer challenge" in 1994 as a way to address this need.
The Competition
LifeSmarts" is a flexible classroom or group activity to help high school youth learn to make better decisions about:
- technology
- personal finance
- health and safety
- the environment
- consumer rights
- consumer responsibilities
Students compete on-line at www.lifesmarts.org for the first three rounds. Then 14 teams are chosen by the Virginia LifeSmarts coordinator to compete at the state level. The winning state team receives an all expense paid trip to the National competition to represent Virginia.
Visit www.lifesmarts.org to register as a coach or a team member. the coach most register before team members can register. For the on-line competition you can have as many team members as you choose. For the state and national competition you can have a maximum of five. It is up to the coach which members to bring to the state competition.
2008 Spotsylvania High School
2007 George C. Marshall High School
2005-2006 Henrico 4-H
2003-2004 Maggie L. Walker Governors School
2002-2001 Washington County 4-H
2000 Clover Hill High School
1999 Fairfax 4-H
1998 Henrico 4-H
1997 Northumberland Count
1996 New Kent High School 4-H
The on-line competiton starts September 15, 2008. The on-line competition will close on February 6, 2009. Coaches will be notified the following week if their team(s) have been chosen to compete. The state competition is March 6, 2009 at VCU in Richmond. Teams are responsible for their own travel to Richmond. Lunch is provided. The National competition is in St. Louis, MO on April 25-28, 2009.
The state and national competitions are modified double elimination (You must loose two rounds to be eliminated until the semi-finals where it is single elimination). There are three sections to each round of the competition: Section 1- Individual Questions, Section 2 -Team Questions and Team Plus Questions, and Section 3: Challenge Round (first to buzzer). In addition, he final round includes a tem Challenge Question worth 15 points on a single subject. You can use the on-line competition without entering the state competition.
Only four members of the team compete at any one time. Alternaes can come in at the end of section 1 or section 2. The first section of competition round is individual questions. Each participant will be asked one question. The person asked is the only person who may answer the question. They must give their answer within 10 seconds. Each correct answer is worth five points.
The second ection of each round is team questions. Each team will get four team questions. They can talk with their team members, and captains will give the answers. You must give your answer within 10 seconds. Each correct answer is worth five points. The second part of this round is the Team-Plus questions. The first question is for the first player on each team. The person who buzzes in and gives the correct answer wins control of the question, and that team will have a chance to answer two additional questions on the same subject.
Remember, the Question Master must call the participants name before they give their answer. If the first person to buzz in gives an incorrect answer, or does not answer within five seconds, the first player on the other team can buzz in at any time. After your team gains control of the question, they may work as a team to solve the next two questions with the captain giving the answer. They must correctly answer the second question in order to be asked the third question. All questions are open-ended. They have ten seconds to give their answer for the second and third question. Each correct answer is worth five points. There will then be questions for the second, third, and fourth players.
The third section of each round is the challenge round. Here teamsl use the buzzers. The first person to buzz in will answer the question. But please, do not give an answer until the Question Master has called the person's name. If they give an answer before their name has been called, they forfeit their teams opportunity to answer the question. Once the person's name is called, they have five seconds to give their answer. If the first person to buzz in gives an incorrect answer, the buzzers will immediately be reset and players on the other team can buzz in at any time. If needed, the question master will read the question again for the remaining team. Correct answers are worth 10 points. There are 15 questions in the challenge round.
If there is a tie, their will be a tiebreaker of three open-ended questions. Each correct answer is worth one point in the tiebreaker round.
In the final round after the team plus questions and before the challenge round, there will be be a team challenge question. Both team will be given a question on a topic and asked to answer a set of questions by writing their answers on a piece of paper. The judges will then score their answers awarding 0-15 points in 5 point increments. While the judges are awarding oints the question master will give sample answers to the audience and the teams.
Congratulations to everyone who competed. Nineteen coaches qualified over 30 teams. This is the highest number of coaches and teams that we have had complete the competition. Only fourteen teams could be invited to the state contest.
Marshall Statesmen Team I Kimberly Fields Marshall Statesman Team 2 Kimberly Fields Brooke Point High School Red Team Kimberly Whitehouse Brooke Point High School Black Team Kimberly Whitehouse Chesterfield Home School Blazers Carolyn Pegram Goouchland 4-H Spartans Teresa Layton The 4-Horsement -Henrico 4-H Karie Dawkins Buzzer Happy - Herico 4-H Karie Dawkins
Dragons Don Blanton Prince Edward FBLA Mary Beth Blessing Spotsylvania High School Knights Hilary Parr West Potomac High School BusLaw LaTresa Hines-Rich
TIME
EVENT
8:15-9:30 AM
Coffee for officials
Officials Training
8:30-9:20AM
Team
Registration
9:30 – 9:40 AM
Opening Session
9:50 -10:15 AM
Round 1
10:25-10:50 AM
Round 2
11:00 – 11:25
Round 3
11:35 AM -Noon
Round 4
Noon -1:30 PM
LUNCH
1:40-2:05 PM
Round 5
2:15-2:40PM
Rounds 6
2:50-4:00
Round 7
As soon as Championship rounds are finished.
Awards
Round 8 may not be necessary.
Two middleschool teams will hold a round of competion during the first round after lunch to decide the middle school champion.
Event
12th Annual LifeSmarts Competition
Date
Friday, March 6, 2009
Time
No snacks are provided
Registration starts at 8:30 AM
2nd floor Student Commons at Virginia Commealth University
Welcome is at 9:30 and first round starts at 9:50am.
LUNCH is provided for the coaches and team members. PDF of lunch instructions
Contest Ends around 4:00 PM with Awards. Winning team and runner-up will need to stay and complete some paperwork.
Location
VCU Student Commons 2nd floor 900 Floyd Avenue, Richmond, VA
Sponsor
VA LifeSmarts Coalition /National Consumers League
State Coordinator Celia Hayhoe. Ph.D., CFP®
Map
VCU Monroe Park Campus
http://www.vcu.edu/maps/acmap/unstucom/unstucom.htm
Parking instructions
Parking Deck at Main and Laurel—next to Landmark Theatre or in the deck at Cary and Harrison -- Cost $5.00 per day.
Virginia Credit Union
Office of the Virginia Attorney General*
Virginia 4-H
Virginia Credit Union League
Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Business –DC Chapter
Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants
Housing Opportunities Made Equal, Inc.
Virginia Council of Economic Education
*Amounts contributed by the Attorney General’Office are derived from fees, recoveries and other monies collected from defendants in antitrust and consumer protection cases brought by the Office.
Celia Ray Hayhoe, Ph.D., CFP®, Virginia Tech, State Coordinator
Amanda Blanks, State Corporation Commission
Randy Davis, Attorney General’s Office
Joy Eades, Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals
Kim Edmonds, Henrico County Cooperative Extension
Suzanne Gallagher, Virginia Commonwealth University
Brenda Hicks-Massey , Housing Opportunities Made Equal, Inc.
Cherry Hedges , Virginia Credit Union
Evelyn A. Jez, Ph.D., Office of Consumer Affairs
Irene E. Leech, Ph.D. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council
Dawn Lindley, Virginia Credit Union League
Steve Malone, Federal Reserve Bank, Richmond
Melissa Smarr, Fairfax County Consumer Protection
Cristin Sprenger, Augusta County Cooperative Extension
For more information, contact Celia Hayhoe, VA State Coordinator, at chayhoe@vt.edu or 540-231-3497 or Visit the national site www.lifesmarts.org