Junior Achievement® (JA®) has launched JA Global Marketplace®, a new and innovative digital curriculum tailored for middle school students to provide global business and cultural competencies. The curriculum is supported by HSBC, which shared business expertise and provided a $2 million grant to develop the digital course.
JA Global Marketplace® is designed to provide students with much needed practical information about the global economy. The program includes seven interactive lessons that allow students to more deeply understand how they are affected by factors such as international business, the global market, trade barriers, currency exchange, and business ethics. Through the program’s blended learning model, students have the opportunity for hands-on engagement and are exposed to the global competency that leading educators believe will be so critical for their futures in an increasingly global job market.
To demonstrate the insight gained from the curriculum, JA and HSBC staged “Crash the Classroom” an interactive experiment with 7th grade students. The surprise classroom visit included an “around the world” tour of various countries led by a diverse group of HSBC employees who provided instruction on cultural and business customs. Interviews with the students before and after, captured on film, demonstrate that even youth who live in a diverse community would benefit from additional, positive exposure to global cultures.
After the “Crash the Classroom” experience, one of the students said, “We need to take time to learn about different cultures, because it’s very important to life and business.”
JA Global Marketplace® curriculum is debuting in classrooms across the U.S, and JA® plans a nationwide roll-out that will include HSBC volunteer instructors in local schools and could reach as many as 150,000 students in grades 6 through 8. In Greater Washington since 2015, JA Global Marketplace® will have been delivered to over 3,000 District, Maryland, and Virginia youth by the end of this school year and will be delivered to more students next year. Junior Achievement of Greater Washington was also home to pilots during the development of the program.
JA Global Marketplace® is the latest collaboration in a relationship spanning three-quarters of a century. HSBC began its support of JA® in 1942 with a $25 donation. That has since expanded to HSBC’s significant national support of JA® chapters across the U.S. with critical funding and skill-based volunteers.
“With international commerce playing such an important role in our daily lives, we were thrilled to join with HSBC to share their expertise with students about the global economy and what it means for our country and the world,” said Ed Grenier, President & CEO, Junior Achievement of Greater Washington. “The new JA Global Marketplace® program allows students to learn about and understand other cultures; it opens their eyes to new perspectives and helps them understand how we’re all connected through trade.”
“In my role at HSBC, I see the positive impact of trade on companies and the economy in today’s increasingly inter-dependent world. Put simply, when countries trade with each other, the world becomes stronger,” said Inwha Huh, North America head of global trade and receivables finance, HSBC Bank USA, N.A. “Additionally, I’m also a mother of a middle-school student, and like many parents, I want her to be open-minded, embrace other cultures and be truly prepared to enter a global job market.”
HSBC finances more global trade than any other bank in the world. With offices in 72 countries and territories globally, the HSBC network covering more than three quarters of global commerce, making HSBC the world’s leading international trade and business bank. Since establishing its U.S. presence in 1865, HSBC has strived to be a bridge between U.S. businesses and Americans to the world.
JA Global Marketplace® supports national financial literacy standards, social studies standards of economics and national technology standards. To learn more, visit www.ja.org. Join the #CrashTheClassroom conversation with @JA_GW, @JA_USA, and @HSBC_US.