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The mission of the Missouri Council on Economic Education (MCEE) is to promote and improve economic literacy for educators and students. This increases their understanding of our economic system and equips them to function as responsible citizens who make educationally and financially sound personal and public policy decisions. This newsletter recognizes Mrs. Mary Bahner for her outstanding ability to integrate economics into her curriculum and her involvement with economic assessments.

Mrs. Bahner teaches in the Sedalia #200 district where she is currently an eighth grade American History teacher at the middle school. She taught in the Pettis County R-XII district for 16 years and has also taught fifth, sixth, and seventh grades. This fall, she will move to Heber Hunt Elementary in Sedalia to teach fifth grade. She has integrated "Show-Me" Economics, the Stock Market Game, Eyes on the Economy, Teaching Economics in American History: A Teacher's Manual for Secondary Schools, and lessons from  Personal Finance Economics.

Mrs. Bahner's class at Pettis County actively participated in Exchange City at the Learning Exchange in Kansas City. The student's excitement about Exchange City motivated her to create and implement a school-wide project called CASHTOWN, an acronym for Children Assessed Showing Hands-On Targeted Objectives Working Now.

The upper-grade students competed with each other to become entrepreneurs by presenting their business plan to a panel of teachers and community members. Once selected as an entrepreneur, the students then actually created a shop for a day. Students set up shops that did rubber stamping, origami, recyclables, cards, candles, and a radio station. Even the school lunch was one entrepreneur's shop. The younger students in the school were assigned to various shops and rotated to gain as much work experience as possible.

Cashtown was governed by a mayor and a town council elected from the student population. Each shop had a business license and students were paid in Cashtown dollars which were designed by a student in the school. The entrepreneurs were also encouraged to ask businesses with which they had an affiliation to sponsor their shop. Students were assessed based on the Missouri Mastery and Achievement objectives in place in the Pettis County R-XII curriculum at that time.

Mrs. Bahner's sixth grade language arts class at Sedalia Middle School (SMS) did an interdisciplinary unit on the history of Sedalia. Students worked in teams to conduct interviews with bankers, restaurant owners, funeral directors, railroad personnel, and senior members of the community. They also created a display and presentation about a particular business in Sedalia. The unit ended with a walking tour of downtown Sedalia.

Mrs. Bahner's involvement with economic education extends beyond the walls of her classroom. She has worked with Dr. Warren Solomon, director of Social Studies for the state of Missouri, on the seventh grade social studies Missouri Mastery and achievement Test (MMAT) and currently on the eighth grade social studies Missouri Assessment program (MAP). She has served on the Initial Assessment Development Committee, Item Specifications Meeting, Stimulus Review, Specification Writing Workshop, Initial Training Material Review in Indianapolis, and the Training materials Review Meeting last December for this spring's eighth grade tests. She collaborated with two other eighth-grade teachers in the state to create the Eighth Grade Social Studies Sampler, which contains economic questions concerning the price of flour in the South.

Mrs. Bahner has demonstrated great creative ability as she has successfully integrated economic curricula and concepts into a wide range of curricular areas. The MCEE salutes Mary Bahner for her dedication to and creativity in teaching economics across the curriculum.