MARS — Every Tuesday morning in Mars a score of fledgling stockbrokers and financiers file into fifth-grade teacher Brittnee Madigan's classroom at Mars Centennial School, eager to see how the stock market has treated them over the week.

These young stock traders are 10- and 11-year-old fifth graders, and the money is virtual currency. But the lessons they learn in this extracurricular activity will teach them how to wisely handle money and how markets work across the country and the world.

“As part of the game, students are asked to invest a virtual $100,000 in stocks, bonds and mutual funds; then, to monitor and adjust their investment portfolios, as needed,” said Madigan, a fifth-grade teacher and club's sponsor.

“The goal of the program is to prepare the students for financially independent futures through real-world practice,” she said.

Students use a program called The Stock Market Game, an online simulation of the global capital markets that engages students in the world of economics, investing and personal finance.

There they can monitor, buy and sell stocks with the goal of maximizing profits and learning how to minimize the risk of losing money.

And some of them are doing very well.

“A few weeks ago one of my teams was ranked 15th out of 908 Pennsylvania teams.” Madigan said. “Currently that team is ranked 88 out of 1081 teams.”

Teams are ranked through the program, allowing Madigan to see how her students are doing within the region.

Each team is made up of two or three students. They use tablet computers and laptops and analyze charts and spreadsheets that are color-coded to show profits and loses.

“We're looking at our stocks and figuring out which ones we're gonna sell and which ones we're going to buy,” said student Nate Washington. “We're trying to find another company that's doing good right now.”

“We have Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Netflix, Nike and (Nvidia),” said student Patrick Miko, as he scrolled through the data offered in the program. “It'll show a chart, and if it's getting higher of course it's getting better. And it'll show the first point and the point it's at now, and you can do one day, five days, one month, six months and how it did in that time span.”

Another team a table away was working to get out of a recent slump in stock prices.

“Netflix isn't doing so great so we'll probably sell it,” said Sean Brennan.

Through the process students said they'd learned some valuable lessons about buying stocks and reading markets.

“We've learned to make sure that each one is doing good over the years,” said Jillian Gaghan, “to look and make sure each is going up over the years.”

Other lessons have been more straightforward.

“Don't buy Netflix,” said Brennan.

After the students picked their stocks to buy and sell, the trading floor closed as Madigan led her students in a lesson about business loans and interest rates.

The class analyzed different banks' business loan interest rates and determined the best one to fit a specific loan, teaching them the importance of understanding interest rates when borrowing money.

Each Tuesday the class is given a new lesson in finance and business which they can someday use in their lives.

“I enjoy watching the 10- and 11-year-olds grow in their financial management skills,” Madigan said. “On the first day of the club, most of the students did not know how to define a 'share.' Now, they are conversing with adults at home about the current stock quotes and the positions in the stock market.”

For more information about The Stock Market Game, visit www.stockmarketgame.org.