A team of five students from River Ridge High School won the spring 2010 Stock Market Game.

The ninth-grade team was made up of students Gage Rhoden, Jonathan Shaw, Jacob Gaddis, Austin Kohler and Robert Curley, all of whom are in social studies teacher Samantha Fraser's fourth-period class.

A game continues to catch on in county schools.

The game, that teaches students how to navigate the tricky waters of the stock market continues to cath on in county schools. Sponsored by the Georgia Council on Economic Education, students go through a simulation of stock trading for 10 weeks.

Each student starts out with a hypothetical $100,000 portfolio and begins research on publicly traded companies online to select stocks.

The team from each school district with the highest value portfolio at the end of the 10 weeks wins the game.

River Ridge High School's team will be recognized by the Council on May 4. The students, Ms. Fraser said, finished with a portfolio worth $109,096, netting them the win in the county.

"I was just proud of them," she said. "I knew how hard they worked."

Last semester, a team of 4th-grade students from Liberty Elementary won the fall 2009 game.

The students, Anna Adas, Kammann Brown, Claudia Chu, Abigail Harris and Derrek Woodworth ended with a portfolio worth $120,096.76.

Anna Mixon, fourth-grade teacher at Liberty, said her students enjoyed playing the game.

"I think that all the students had a great time and learned what the stock market actually is," she said. "Most of them did not really understand what they were getting into."

Ms. Fraser said while her students were playing the game, they factored in the all-too-real economic recession in deciding which stocks to purchase.

Ms. Fraser said she noticed the students would analyze which industries were suffering and would base their decisions on that.

Ms. Mixon said the same thing. Also, she said, her students played the game between October and December and took into account the holiday shopping season.

When the H1N1 flu was getting widespread coverage, the students also considered investing in pharmaceutical companies that would be manufacturing vaccines.

The River Ridge students said they were not expecting to win the game.

"We were all relaxed about it," said Gage, the 15-year-old son of Dale and Angela Rhoden of Woodstock.

Gage added he and his team of students decided to invest in stocks such as Apple, eBay and Lifetime brands.

"We went with things that were safe," he said, adding the students avoided anything related to the home building and automobile industries.

Jacob, the 14-year-old son of Keith and Carol McNeese of southeast Cherokee County, said the students didn't do much trading and held onto stocks for as long as they could without hurting their portfolios.

Jonathan, the 14-year-old son of Steve and Beth Shaw of Woodstock, added he was glad he participated in the game because he's learned how the market operates.

Ms. Fraser said she believed her students enjoyed playing the game and they also learned a sense of "autonomy."

"They were motivated to do the research," she said.