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Three Oakton High School students are using a simple choice between planting a seed and trading it for candy to introduce elementary school pupils to personal finance.

Dev Rai, Austin Chen and Ayush Ranjan wrote and illustrated “The Seed That Grows” as part of a DECA financial-literacy initiative. Their story uses the growth of a seed to explain saving, investing and the value of waiting for a larger reward.

The book follows two children who make different decisions after receiving seeds. One child plants the seed and waits for it to grow into a tree. The other exchanges the seed for candy, providing young readers with a contrast between immediate spending and a choice that may produce benefits later.

“For being able to be financially stable, you have to have those basic skills about not just spending money whenever you get a chance, but actually having that basic discipline in order to save it or wait awhile,” Rai said.

The team reported raising more than $1,000 for the project and distributing 274 copies among 12 schools in the Fairfax County area and five international schools. The supplied report did not identify the participating schools or state when the distribution occurred.

Rai said translated editions reached India, China, Kazakhstan and Australia through connections that the team’s adviser had at the World Bank. The report does not establish that the World Bank formally participated in the project.

Along with distributing the book, the students held several read-aloud sessions. They surveyed participating pupils before and after those sessions in an effort to measure whether the presentation changed their understanding of the book’s lessons.

Rai reported a 74% change in understanding following the sessions. That figure comes with significant unanswered questions: The supplied account does not define what the percentage measured, disclose the number of survey participants or describe the survey methodology. Without those details, the result cannot be independently assessed.

The students are also considering a new format for the same ideas. Their next planned step is to adapt the book’s concepts into a financial-literacy game.