Chelsea High School took home state titles in both the Michigan Economics Challenge and Personal Finance Challenge. These competitions, organized by the Michigan Council on Economic Education, bring together students from around the state to compete and demonstrate their skills.
Chelsea has built a legacy in these competitions. This is the eighth year in a row CHS has won the Personal Finance Challenge (PFC) state title and this is Chelsea’s first Econ Challenge since 2022 but it is now its fifth since 2016.
The competitions were recently held at the branch of the Chicago Federal Reserve in Detroit.
Here are the teams from CHS:
On the Econ Challenge team is: Robert Davis, Alex Rogers, Sam Trimble, and Charlie Basar.
The PFC team is: Slater Boos, Luke Mourad, Lauren Thompson, and Alex Detterman.
The Sun Times News connected with Matt Pedlow, a teacher at CHS and coach/advisor for the teams, to ask about this success at the state level.
“It was a fun day for all of the students involved, I was very proud of the kids who competed,” Pedlow said. “The quiz bowls were probably the hardest quiz bowls that I have seen since I started taking teams to the competitions, but our students dug deep and came out on top.”
In explaining how the competitions worked, Pedlow said for the Econ Challenge team- they competed in a series of three tests. The first test is microeconomics, the 2nd one is macroeconomics, and the third one they take as a team and it consists of questions about international trade, he said.
“The scores are compiled, and the top three teams moved on to a quiz bowl,” Pedlow said. ‘These teams were Chelsea in first place, Novi in 2nd place, and Troy High School in 3rd place. Chelsea was down big to start the quiz bowl, but then went on a roll and tied it up with two questions left. The last question sealed the win for Chelsea as they were the only team to get the question correct.”
He said the question was “What component of GDP did Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently say that the statistical agency he oversees might stop including in calculating GDP?”
The answer was government spending.
Pedlow said the Personal Finance Challenge team competed first in a case study that involved a fictional family.
“The job of the students is to create a financial plan that deals with debt, taxes, insurance, and investing,” he explained. “There were three rooms of teams, and each room sent one team into the final round. During the quiz bowl finals, Chelsea competed against Huron High School and Troy High School. Like the Econ Challenge that took place in the morning, Chelsea quickly found themselves down big against the two teams, but stormed back to take the lead with one question remaining. Chelsea then got the last question correct, which was—If a parent’s health care plan covers dependents, what is the age a child can stay on their parents health insurance?”
The correct answer was 26.
After the win, the CHS Econ Challenge team took a national semi-final test the following day, which consisted of 45 multiple-choice questions. Pedlow said they will find out this week if they move on to the national finals. The Personal Finance Challenge team now moves on to the national finals, which will take place in Atlanta on June 2nd.
Photo 1: The PFC team: Slater Boos, Luke Mourad, Lauren Thompson, Alex Detterman with Matt Pedlow (teacher, far left) and Derek D’Angelo, the President of the MI Council on Economic Education, at right. Photo courtesy of CHS
Photo 2: The Econ Challenge team: Robert Davis, Alex Rogers, Sam Trimble, and Charlie Basar. Photo courtesy of CHS
