Consumer Mathematics and Incarcerated Youths: An Option for Educating some of America’s Underserved Children

Abstract

The curriculum project contained herein is designed around educating youth, particularly incarcerated youth, in obtaining a level of mastery of basic financial literacy and consumer mathematics. The goal is to provide the necessary mathematical reasoning tools to survive on one’s own. The lack of educational opportunities and resources available to incarcerated youths necessitated the creation of basic consumer math lessons to assist an educator in providing general mathematical understanding of basic concepts and reasoning of consumer mathematics. There are five lessons included in this cuuriculum and answer keys are provided at the end. All lessons are in conjunction with New York state standards in both mathematics and social studies.