The Finance aspect of the All Aspects of the Industry guidelines is designed to expose students studying industry based careers about the different ways in which that industry or a specific organization makes accounting and financial decisions. The Finance aspect does not promote training for a specific career; instead it gives a framework for students to learn how an industry operates. Specifically, this includes concepts such as acquiring capital and the financial side of operations. It is ideal to teach Finance within the context of a specific industry, such as engineering or food service, but otherwise the ideas for how to teach it are similar.
Potential Topics
Finance is entirely concerned with how much money is needed, how to raise or borrow that money and how to manage it throughout the process. Students do not need to understand all accounting principles, unless that is the industry being investigated, but they do need to understand how to acquire and manage funds. Some potential topics to introduce students to financial concepts include:
- How a startup company can borrow or raise funds
- Positives and negatives to a company using credit or loans
- Factors that affect profits
- How employees are considered a financial asset
- How a business bids for a contract
- How to create and maintain a budget
Implementing Finance Activities in the Curriculum
Decision making and comparison activities are ideal for including the Financial aspect in the curriculum. These can be individualized or used as group projects. Students should be exposed to a variety of scenarios; consider using a case study or a specific scenario and having students create a final product to demonstrate understanding. Examples for activities include:
- Create a financial report for a bakery or engineering group.
- Design a proposal for a hotel to implement wireless access for their clients.
- Analyze the budget for a small business.
- Compare and contrast the prices at local stores.
- Compare the costs, time and resources needed to complete a specified task.
- Explain how supply and demand works for a specified industry.
- Identify products constructed nearby and abroad and compare the financial advantages and disadvantages.
Internships
Classroom activities can be enhanced by internship or job shadow opportunities. A field trip could also provide students with the opportunity to interview a financial representative of a local business. Have students create a questionnaire in advance to fill out while at the job site or during the interview. This questionnaire should emphasize topics such as how the business raises capital, how it is financially affected by the local or global market and what type of data they collect to help them make financial decisions.
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