Random Ideas (March)

Start the year with a lemonade stand project: each group of students gets one can of powdered lemonade mix, some cups, and no more.   They have 48 hours to sell as much as they can, making the greatest profit as they can.

First, this will be a fun project to start the year.  It will energize the group.  More importantly, it will get them to see how hard selling can be.  This will be crucial for later on in the course, when they design projects that involve selling.  Doing this first project will help them anticipate that they will need to set out a lot of time for the selling (a problem this year).

Also, the project highlights the importance of a number of skills: planning, collaborating, working with a fixed resource, keeping track of profits, marketing, sales, competition.


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Some competencies that students need to have:

Sending professional emails
Writing in a way that's both engaging and professional
Trello--managing a project on a day-to-day basis
Learning how to create good slides
Learning how to use a spreadsheet
Learning how to set appropriate goals



Students need to be exposed to problems that the community faces (so that they can work to solve them)

Students need to be exposed to what innovative kids (and non-kids) are doing in the world so that they can see what might be possible.