By MOLLY DAVIDSON / Staff Writer

CHELSEA—Do you know how you would invest $100,000? Forest Oaks Elementary School students can advise you. Fourth and fifth grade Gifted Education students recently completed the 10-week Stock Market Game challenge, with four teams of students placing in the top 10.

The Forest Oaks students competed against around 350 other teams of fourth through eighth grade students. Each team of two students was allotted an imaginary $100,000 to invest in stocks of their choice over a 10-week period.

Students were tasked with researching companies and stocks by “talking to their parents, watching the ticker on T.V.” and browsing Yahoo’s finance page during class, Forest Oaks gifted resource teacher Leigh McLemore explained.

As a team, the students created an investment portfolio. Winners were determined by total gains over the 10-week period.

Allie Lario and Eli Williams took third place, Will Fant and Parker McIntyre came in fourth place, Campbell McCluney and Andrew Floyd took seventh overall, and Bricen Waites and Nicolaus Rigdon earned ninth place.

“These are real stocks from the real New York Stock Exchange,” McLemore explained. “(The Stock Market Game) let them see if they do their research, investing in stocks could be the way to go.”

In addition to showing the students the benefits of saving and wisely investing, the Stock Market Game reinforced skills learned in other classes.

“It helped with their math skills, reading graphs, charts and making predictions,” McLemore said.

This year was the third year McLemore’s students participated in the Stock Market Game.

“Our focus last year in our curriculum was on economics and the perks of saving and investing your money,” McLemore said. “We continued that part of our curriculum this year.”

Some of the students have taken their financial savvy gained in class and from the Stock Market Game and applied it to the real world.

“Several students, since doing this, have started their own bank accounts and some have looked into penny stocks,” McLemore said.