Laura Kalkman
Director of Marketing
ROCKET MEDIA
ROCKET MEDIA recognizes that involvement and giving back to the community is important. That is why Laura Kalkman, Director of Marketing, was asked to give time during the workday to participate in the Junior Achievement program.
Junior Achievement uses hands-on experiences to help young people understand the economics of life. In partnership with business and educators, Junior Achievement brings the real world to students, opening their minds to their potential.
Laura volunteered her time in Mrs. Weather’s 4th grade classroom at Galveston Elementary in Chandler, Arizona. There, Laura spent one hour, every Tuesday morning, teaching a lesson plan to the class for six weeks. Junior Achievement provides volunteers with a book of lesson plans for the volunteers to follow, which introduces the children to beginning ideas of business and economics.
The following are the concepts Laura taught to the class.
Concepts: Advantage, Business, Choices, Compass rose, Decision, Disadvantage, Economy, Exchange, Expenses, Financial report, Goods, Government, Incentives, Income, Interdependence, Investment, Loss, Opportunity cost, Products, Profit, Region, Resources, Risk, Scarcity, Services, Specialization, and Taxes.
Laura’s Comments:
“The whole idea of this program was intimidating when I first considered participating. I was very nervous about getting in front of a class of fourth graders and teaching them ideas of business. I didn’t go to school to teach. Luckily Junior Achievement made it very easy for me to get in there and teach with the training tips and lesson plans they provided.
Mrs. Weathers’s class was great! The kids treated me with respect and were great listeners. On my last day, I was kind of bummed that I wasn’t going to be hanging out with them anymore, but I hope what I taught sticks with them. I think my main goal in this volunteer program was to make it effective and actually get the message through to the kids that they can do anything in life as long as they work hard and dream big.”
ROCKET MEDIA thanks Laura for donating her time in representation of the company. Visit http://www.ja.org/ if you are interested in getting your company involved in Junior Achievement through time or money donation.