On its website, FinÉcoLab offers a series of 18 free interactive games for computers and tablets, enabling young people to discover economic and financial concepts in a real-life situation. Students make simple economic and financial decisions, such as buying an asset, saving for emergency expenses, investing in a public asset or declaring their income for tax purposes. The class results, available in real time, then serve as a basis for the teacher to discuss and explore the concepts under study.
The program covers five main themes:
- Market and prices
- Individual preferences
- Individual choices
- Collective choices
- Institutions
A la carte and turnkey, the games can be used independently of each other. Teachers benefit from a detailed teaching guide for each game and free training.
This program, set up in 2013 as part of the project « Towards better economic and financial education for young people », is based on an experimental approach designed to improve the knowledge and skills of secondary V and CEGEP students. It is based on an original and innovative idea: to help students discover economics through experimentation rather than theory.