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Introduction

You are now a young adult ready to take on the world.  Math concepts often seem unrelated to the real world when practiced in isolation.  This simulation will integrate economic principles, introduce basic ideas of consumer education, and review all math operations.
 
 

Task

To begin this "Real World" simulation, you must first choose a career.  When choosing a career, one would want to be well informed and educated on what field they would like to spend their time in.  Whew!  If you thought this was hard, your work has only begun.  Next, you must choose a place of residence. Now that you have a job and a house you are going to need to have transportation to get to and from work.  Your final task is to setup a monthly budget based upon your research from print and online resources on the subject of personal budgets of the average consumer.
 
 

Procedures

1. Referring to the resource section of the WebQuest, use the links provided to research and choose a career for your life style.  Make sure to determine an average salary for your new job and complete the Budget WebQuest Worksheet.  To assist you in completing your budget worksheet here are some common terms and definitions you will need to know.
• Gross Salary-All salary earned before taxes and deduction
• Net Salary-Salary after taxes and deduction, often called "take home pay"
• Tax-charge imposed by the government for public usage
2. Using the links provided in the resource section of the WebQuest, determine the cost of your payment for your new home.
3. Using the links provided in the resource section of the WebQuest, determine the type of vehicle and the monthly payment for your new wheels.
4. Create a personal monthly budget on Excel.  Use the links provided to help determine the categories and the average monthly costs of a typical consumer that will be included in your budget. For example, the typical categories could include utilities, groceries, and miscellaneous expenses.  There is a degree of flexibility in this portion of the simulation that allows for individual preferences for your budget categories.  This stated, your choices may come under the discretion of your teacher.  Calculations must be accurate within your budget.
5. You will need to provide a written career summary.  The summary will be focused on the following:

• Why you chose this specific career?
• Important elements of this career.
• Interesting information that you discovered about this career.

Resources
 

Evaluation

When the simulation is completed you will receive a grade that reflects the quality of your work.  Even more important, the degree of preparation you have achieved will help with your first years in the professional world.  To see how you will be evaluated please access the rubric for this simulation by clicking on the link below.  Similar to the business world, the best will be rewarded with the most points.

Click on the following link to access the Budget WebQuest Rubric
 
 

Conclusion

To conclude this simulation about the real world we would like to allow you the opportunity to reflect upon your experiences.  We are looking for your reactions and comments to the things that you have learned through this process.  Use the form provided by clicking here to answer a series of questions about the project and process you have just completed.  Also include your written career summary along with the reflection questions.  To reference the prompts for the career summary click here.