Released April 8, 2008
AUBURN UNIVERSITY, Ala. - Bankruptcy, the credit crunch, fraud, and confusion about health care and medical information are just a few of the problems facing consumers today. However, through its LifeSmarts program, the National Consumer League is helping lay the groundwork for the next generation of consumers to succeed in the marketplace in ways their parents haven’t.
LifeSmarts is an educational program that develops the consumer and marketplace knowledge and skills of teenagers. The competition begins online at the state level, where teens form teams and are quizzed at http://www.lifesmarts.org on issues ranging from personal finance and health and safety to the environment, technology, and consumer rights and responsibilities.
Consumer savvy teens representing 29 states will compete at the 2008 National LifeSmarts Championship LifeSmarts event set for April 12 through 15 in Minneapolis, Minn. More than 20,000 teens competed online for a chance to represent their states at Nationals. Players answered 2.6 million consumer questions in the online competition.
The keynote speaker for the program will be U.S. Treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral. She will speak at the awards ceremony on Tuesday, April 15.
Parents and teachers can follow the action at http://www.lifesmarts.org, where NCL will frequently upload photos, competition updates and stories of the action. The competition will be streamed live at http://www.nextgenweb.org. extGenWeb.org, a site sponsored by USTelecom, is a blog and resource site dedicated to looking at how broadband and the innovations that have spawned from broadband deployment are used to better education, health care, the environment and public safety.
The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America's pioneer consumer organization. Its mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad.
For more information, visit http://www.nclnet.org.
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http://www.aces.edu/department/extcomm/npa/newsline/archives/003609.php
Contact: Donna Reynolds, (334) 844-5686, dreynold@auburn.edu