Just before the Christmas break, Tyrone Mayor Pat Stoner met with a group of Tyrone Area High School students who may some day be the business leaders of the community.
Twenty-three ninth grade gifted support students were assigned in September with designing a small business plan that would address the needs of the Tyrone community. The project culminated in a Power Point presentation of the plan and the audience for the presentations was Mayor Stoner.
“The original idea for the project came from an educational technology course I took last summer,” said Tyrone Middle and High School gifted support teacher Kerry Naylor. “One of the project’s major goals was to give every student who participated experience using Power-Point and researching a topic using the Internet. None of the students had really used the program before but young people have a unique way of embracing technology. By the time the project was finished I was amazed by how much creativity the students were able to demonstrate in their presentations.”
Students began in September by assessing the needs of the community. They were given a framework for designing a small business plan and after settling on a small business idea researched different aspects of business development, like market composition, location, advertising and construction costs.
Some of the small business ideas students generated were a sports bar, an extreme sports recreation center and an arcade that featured the day’s top home video game systems. They researched similar ideas on the Internet to obtain estimates for building costs, inventory and marketing ideas.
When all of the preliminary work was complete, students then created a visual presentation of their business plan using Microsoft Power-Point. Mayor Stoner visited the class several days before their holiday vacation to view their projects in one of the high school’s computer labs.
“The activity was a great way to get the kids thinking creatively,” Naylor said. “It offered them many avenues to express themselves and the kids really got into it. One group designed their own logo, scanned it into a photograph program on the computer, enhanced it and used it for their presentation. Another group went as far as to tabulate their company’s start-up costs all the way down to the prices of silverware and plates. Many of the groups put great thought into location, with some choosing to construct their business on or near I-99 to attract more customers. I was impressed with how far the students were willing to go with this.”
According to Naylor, Stoner’s participation provided motivation for the students.
“I wanted the kids to create these projects with a real-world audience in mind,” said Naylor. “I wanted them to be more than just something that would be left on a computer and forgotten. Mayor Stoner never hesitated when I asked her to come in and view them and she took time to make comments to the students on their ideas. She was a great help.”
