LifeSmarts 2010-2011 season live today – National Consumers League

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By Brandi Williams, LifeSmarts Program Assistant

The LifeSmarts program year and online competition goes live today, Monday, September 13, 2010! This is the 17th year of LifeSmarts, and NCL is excited to continue bringing this free program to American youth in 6th-12th grade. Over the past year our team has worked diligently to expand the program by:

  • Launching LifeSmarts U, our virtual online classroom, which features complete self-guided lesson plans and activities for educators and students.
  • Enhancing the National Championship format by giving all state champion teams the chance to compete eight times, and raising the bar by creating a more academically rigorous competition;
  • Increasingly using interactive social networking tools like our pages on Facebook, Twitter and the LifeSmarts blog;
  • Upgrading the Web site and other behind-the-scenes tools to better support our dedicated state coordinators and coaches.

To make LifeSmarts and its consumer education and personal financial literacy content even more accessible, watch for these new features to come online in the next few weeks and months;

  • New Fraud and Health lessons in LifeSmarts U;
  • Program expansion projects in California and the District of Columbia;
  • Development of LifeSmarts’ ongoing partnership with Family, Career and Community Leaders of America and a spot in the 2011 National Championship reserved for the top FCCLA team in the country;
  • New Web tools for state coordinators and coaches;
  • The October 1, 2010, launch of TeamSmarts, a new online team competition. TeamSmarts is a 100-question quiz that focuses on one rotating LifeSmarts topic each month, with a special 200-question assessment covering all topics in February. Teams will work together to complete the quiz and see where they rank against other teams throughout the country. Monthly prizes will be awarded to the top LifeSmarts and FCCLA teams. More information about prizes will be available soon, so be sure to check out the LifeSmarts Newsroom for details!

After an amazing and exciting 2010 National Championship in Miami Beach, FL, the LifeSmarts team buckled down to prepare for the coming year. With the support of industry volunteers, NCL staff, interns, and state coordinators, we’ve written tons of new questions for 2011’s state and national competitions! And with help from our 2010 Summer Intern Jacob Markey, a Wisconsin LifeSmarts alum, we were able to refresh and expand our Web content. You will also see Jacob’s posts here on the Savvy Consumer Blog over the coming year.

Here’s to our best program year yet!