Ready, On Your Mark, Balance That Budget!

Ready, On Your Mark, Balance That Budget!

Why just talk about balancing the budget, when you can take a crack at balancing it yourself?

Participants in Public Agenda's Students Face Up to the Nation's Finances curriculum can use the Budget Hero online budget-balancing game for tournaments - within a single class, for example, or, competing against another group. It's a great way to put economic and political theories into action: winners will have to both watch their spending and win the votes of other players.

Here's a sample lesson plan using Budget Hero:

* Log onto to Budget Hero at American Public Media. Students may compete either as individuals, or, in teams of two or more persons (not recommended for small or medium-size classes).

* Round One: contestants have five minutes to make spending decisions on the federal budget, and when time runs out, the six with the lowest cost budgets are the winners of the round. All other contestants are thrown out of the game, Survivor-style, and become the jury to vote on which of the round's winners will advance to the next round of the competition.

* Members of the jury examine the six budgets that won Round One, may ask each of the round's winners to defend specific funding choices or budget cuts, and the jury then votes on Best Budget. The three Budget Hero players with the most votes advance to the next round, and the losing players join the jury.

* In Round Two, the three remaining players start from scratch, have five minutes to make spending and budget cut decisions, and in the hopes of winning votes, can adjust their fiscal strategies based on the jury's previous comments.

* The two lowest-cost budgets win Round Two, and the losing player joins the jury, as all jury members study the two budgets now in competition, and ask the Budget Hero semi-finalists to defend their spending decisions. The jury then votes on Best Budget, and the player with the most votes wins the game.

* Variation: players can begin the first round of Budget Hero at home, with no time limits, preparing Budgets whose results are either printed out or posted to Facebook.

Facing Up Hall of Fame: faculty members are encouraged to send us the names and e-mail addresses of tournament winners (to posted along with the winners of each semester's essay and multimedia contest). No two players are likely to balance the budget in exactly the same way - we love hearing about the decisions students make as they fuel up on facts. College students are also encouraged to send us their budget-balancing stories - and may be invited to serve as guest bloggers at FacingUp.org.

Tips for faculty members: the game can be used just once, or several times, and can serve as an introductory lesson, a chance to test classroom knowledge, or as the beginning of citizen action and discussion, when classes and individual winners face off against other groups or their winners.