A budding relationship between LifeSmarts and FBLA – National Consumers League

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERABy Lisa Hertzberg, LifeSmarts Program Director LifeSmarts staff has just returned from our first Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) National Leadership Conference (NLC) and is excited about the many possibilities for connections and growth. Our partners at FBLA have been accommodating and encouraging, and, beginning this fall, we’re pleased to offer FBLA’s 250,000 High School members a full-fledged LifeSmarts competitive event.

In our pilot this year 400 teams from FBLA chapters across the country competed online in the fall and spring challenges for the right to advance to compete live at the NLC, where the top 18 teams joined us for individual assessments, team activities, and traditional buzzer matches. While in Anaheim teams demonstrated consumer smarts – answering questions across LifeSmarts topics such as:

  • banking, credit, and marketplace economics
  • the three R’s, deforestation, and the greenhouse effect
  • government oversight, the legal system, and fighting fraud
  • nutrition, personal hygiene, and disease prevention
  • hardware, mobile phones, and Internet services

By being quick on the buzzers and backing it up with knowledge across all of the LifeSmarts topics, these teams took home top honors: Cheney HS FBLA, Washington 2. George Marshall HS FBLA, Virginia 3. Barrington HS FBLA, Rhode Island 4. West Platte HS FBLA, Missouri 4. West Chicago HS FBLA, Illinois Congratulations to all of our participants – matches were very competitive and the teams showed great sportsmanship throughout the competition. We invite FBLA Chapter Advisers and student leaders to mark your calendars for the 2013-14 LifeSmarts competitive events: Fall Challenge: October 15 – November 15, 2013 Spring Challenge: February 1 – 28, 2014 FBLA NLC in Nashville: June 29 – July 2, 2014