We started the Finance Project with an introductory lesson discussing a number of topics that the class might consider for the presentations that they will need to produce in groups. We talked about a number of aspects of finance and how it might well impact on every individual, we covered a range of topics such as house costs/rent; how the weather can affect farmers crops and the knock on effect on cereal costs; the average cost of student debt; average cost of a wedding and how some of the things that we might take for granted could change in 20-30 years.
One aspect of finance that keeps cropping up is percentages whether it is calculating percentage reduction in a sale, percentage increase to a salary or to house prices and in particular compound interest. As a consequence we spent a lesson on Compound Interest. The percentage work can be found on the MyMaths website under Library – Number – Percentages – Percentage Change 1 & 2 as well as Number – Money & Finance – Simple Interest, Compound Interest and also Depreciation.
