Social studies teacher David Turner’s students transition from learning about economics in a classroom setting to using economics to compete as they put their interests in the field towards representing the school.
The economics club holds meetings in Turner’s classroom, room H220, to practice for their annual spring competitions. Other schools such as HSE, Carmel, Brebeuf and Lawrence North also participate in the same competitions.
“We get together and learn economics above and beyond what we do in the classroom as we prepare for the spring competition,” Turner said.
The competition has a written portion for the top two highest scoring teams in the state, which is followed by a quiz bowl portion. Indy Economics challenge is the starting competition for Indiana school participants, then top scorers are able to move onto the annual semi-finals. If another high placement occurs, the students have opportunity to be flown out to New York City.
The team won state in 2012 and finished in 12th place in the national semi-finals in 2014. The 2017 competition was on April 13.
“I’ve been here since [the first year of the school] and [Economics club] was something I’ve done at the other schools that I’ve taught at so we got together and met ,” Turner said. “We got ready for the competitions which we didn’t necessarily qualify for until the third or fourth year since the school opened 10 years ago. At that time, there was another competition we went to called the FED challenge but we haven’t gone to that for a while.”
Of the ten years in the competition, the school has had two divisions of AP division and non-AP division. Qualifying for the AP division and reaching the quiz bowl round was tough, Turner says. In eight of the ten years FHS took on Carmel in the quiz bowl round. The two teams went head to head in the non-AP division for seven years. In this year’s competition, the team made it to the quiz bowl round against Carmel with a loss of 10-9 after it missed the last question.
“I enjoy economics and I teach all of the AP/IB economics classes, so all the higher level economics, so you get a lot of students who are motivated to learn a little bit more,” Turner said. “I find economics fascinating which is kind of why I teach it, so it is just a way to extend beyond the classroom. Our team goal is to always beat Carmel- we want to win state and give ourselves an opportunity to move onto semi-finals.”
For more information about the FHS economics club, email social studies teacher David Turner here.
